Partner Press Release
IT Industry Can Drastically Cut Operating Costs with New Process for Warranty Claims

IT Association Feasibility Study Validates Huge Cost Savings Potential

For Release April 16, 2002

Oakbrook Terrace, IL --

CompTIA, the Computing Techn ology Industry Association has introduced a global Electronic Warranty Claim process that will significantly reduce the cost associated with managing electronic service and warranty for resellers and manufacturers.

“This wide-reaching initiative will sa ve millions of dollars in administrative time and significantly reduce error rates in warranty processing,” says Richard Rysiewicz, CompTIA vice president of services.   “This global process will provide immediate productivity gains and has a tremendous fut ure in being able to streamline internal service management processes with the manufacturer’s systems.”  

Currently, inefficiencies in processing warranty claims include multiple system use, duplication of entries, data input errors and inconsistencies in claim closure.   Requesting additional information, ordering parts and tracking rejected claims add to the high cost of processing claims.    By creating one electronic claim input standard that can be utilized by all members of the supply chain, resellers, manufacturers and service providers can save millions of dollars in administrative time and also reduce errors in warranty processing.  

In 2001 CompTIA played a key role in RosettaNet’s development activities associated with forming the Warranty Milesto ne Program.   The CompTIA electronic warranty claim specification has been incorporated as part of the RosettaNet Warranty Claim Partner Interface Process™ (PIP®) 6C2, an XML-based standard that is part of RosettaNet’s 2002 Warranty Milestone Program led by Compaq.

“Through successful industry collaboration, CompTIA, RosettaNet and others have worked together to drive the Warranty Claims process forward, so that companies can begin to realize greater efficiencies and cost reduction through automation,” rem arked Jennifer Hamilton, CEO of RosettaNet.

The CompTIA warranty process can be incorporated into EDI and also accepts flat files.   The system enables different business partners, with disparate systems, to communicate with each other without downtime or duplication of effort.   

According to the CompTIA feasibility study, the standard can be utilized for all electronic warranty claims and is estimated to provide 30-40 percent savings from the typical $9 - $12 cost to process each warranty claim.  

Sand y Ashworth (Unisys), Chair of CompTIA's EWC initiative states, “The top benefits of the EWC initiative being completed include significant cost-savings, reduction of error rate, and the fact that the standard surpasses country-specific requirements and is truly global, allowing anyone to hook up easily.”

Twelve companies participated in the feasibility study and initial development, including Canon, Compaq, Epson, IBM, CompuCom, CompUSA, Entex, Hewlett Packard, MicroAge, Tandy, Toshiba and Unisys.

About CompTIA

CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry Association, is a not-for-profit trade association, providing the technology community standards in the areas of Internet-enable d service provision, e-commerce, vendor-neutral technical certificatio n, CRM, public policy, workforce development and training. Representing the computing and communications market for over 20 years, CompTIA has more than 10,000 corporate members in 78 countries, and 10,500 individual professional members. Almost half a mil lion indiv i duals worldwide have earned CompTIA certifications. More information is available at www.comptia.org .

About RosettaNet

RosettaNet is an independent, non-profit consortium dedicated to the collaborative development and rapid deployment of open I nternet-based business standards that align processes within the global high-technology trading network.   More than 400 companies representing over $1 trillion in annual information technology, electronic components and semiconductor manufacturing revenues currently participate in RosettaNet’s standards development, strategy and implementation activities. A complete list of member companies and more information on RosettaNet is available at www.rosettanet.org .