Diagnostics design: A product support strategy

The use of automated built-in diagnostics in a durable product reduces the cost of product failure in two ways. It reduces the user’s downtime cost by reducing the diagnosis time. A service representative visit may also in some cases be eliminated. The benefits are countervailed by the incremental production cost of the new design. Models are developed to study the tradeoffs involved in designing a product with added diagnostics technology. This strategy is also evaluated from the system performance point of view.