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Overarching policy for improving customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is the most fundamental of principles underpinning Advantest’s business. Our product quality policy — “Offer the timely, high-quality products our customers expect, by designing for quality and by optimizing the production and engineering process globally” — characterizes our portfolio of products that offer not only superior performance, but also superior environmental friendliness and safety. We are committed to keeping our customers satisfied at every stage, from design and manufacturing to sales and service, via painstaking quality assurance and top-notch service and support on a global scale.
Sales and marketing practices that support customer satisfaction gains
Fiscal 2011 initiatives
With the increasing globalization of semiconductor manufacturing, from design to final test, IC test equipment manufacturers like Advantest must remain focused on the specific needs of its key customers, and also on the direction of the fast paced and evolving industry, in order to be responsive to changing technology trends.
As part of our efforts to create a system capable of responding quickly, Advantest established the Strategic Business Unit in June 2011. The Strategic Business Unit is composed of three sections: the Global Marketing Section, which handles marketing and promotion on a global level; the Product Solutions Section, which is responsible for the processes from product planning to product specifications; and the Product Management Section, which manages the development process and conducts risk management. Each section promotes the integration of resources and product road maps to maximize the synergies resulting from the merger with Verigy Ltd., in order to efficiently and promptly advance the cycle of marketing, product planning, development, promotion, and new product introductions. In addition, in the sales system the cross-region FFO Team was established, with FFO standing for Fabless, Foundry, and OSAT (Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test).
Advantest will leverage this strengthened marketing and sales system to speed up the decision making process as it strives to create products and solutions that will truly satisfy its customers.
Sales and Marketing System
Customer satisfaction improvement activities in sales and marketing
The trend toward miniaturization of semiconductors that meet the demand for devices that are smaller, offer higher-performance and use less power is continuing, bolstered by the increase in smart phones, netbooks and other popular consumer devices. These smaller devices are taking the form of single-package solutions that incorporate a bevy of chip-based intellectual property, including microcontrollers and analog semiconductors, CPUs and memories, in a single chip. These devices are commonly known as SOCs, or Systems on Chips. Despite the increased functionality and complexity of these devices, chip makers put continual pressure on ATE manufacturers to lower test costs and also find a means for eliminating the need to purchase new test systems to meet each new generation of device.
Advantest has responded to these demands to lower test costs with test solutions that are both compact and flexible, and can keep IC manufacturers’ costs down with interchangeable modules and upgrades designed to accommodate new device technology and generational advancements.
For example, the CPUs used in smart phones, a rapidly expanding market, are both extremely compact and high-performance. Our T2000 EPP (Enhanced Performance Package) enables multiple parallel tests of these compact and high-performance CPUs in a short period of time, which significantly reduces test costs.
Higher reliability and efficiency are also needed for testing the myriad of semiconductors that are used in environmentally-friendly hybrid cars. Because these semiconductors operate under high voltage and high currents, care is required in their handling. We will work to improve productivity and reduce test costs through the development of automatic test equipment (ATE) for high output semiconductors that had previously been tested individually with conventional measuring systems.
Promoting customer support
The Advantest Group has established a basic policy for customer support in an aim to restructure its service business from a global perspective.
Policies, targets, and plans for fiscal 2012
During fiscal 2012, we will leverage the synergies from the Verigy and Advantest merger to unite Field Service Center engineering resources as we aim to improve efficiency through the sharing of technologies and knowledge.
In the same manner, we will integrate activities in which Verigy and Advantest overlap in their respective supply chains and integrate the operations for maintenance equipment to reduce administrative costs.
In addition, the Global Support Center will respond more quickly to customer requests by reducing its turnaround time in our aim to improve customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the Field Service Center will establish work safety standards by thoroughly enforcing work safety in field service in line with plans to keep the number of accidents at zero.
Strengthening domestic customer support
Support receipt sheet
When we began our improvement activities, we resolved 64% of domestic customer problems reported to the Global Support Center within 24 hours. In cases where the transportation of replacement equipment or parts was involved, we resolved 50% of problems within 48 hours. To further strengthen domestic customer support, the Advantest Group set the target of resolving no less than 85% of problems within 24 hours, and in cases where the transportation of replacement equipment or parts was involved, a target of resolving no less than 95% of problems within 48 hours was set in consideration of the time required for shipping.
During fiscal 2011, we adopted a system in which receipt sheets detailing the support request would be prepared on the board so that the progress from the receipt of the support request until response was completed could be visually grasped. In addition, by assigning staff responsible for managing this progress and giving clear instructions to the individual staff members conducting customer support, we reinforced our means of responding to customer issues before defects became prolonged. Moreover, we took steps towards providing more certain resolution of customer problems in the future by sending an e-mail to customers after support had been provided.
Customer support email sample:
Dear Customer,
Thank you very much for using Advantest products.
This is the Global Support Center.
Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions or concerns.
Warm Regards,
Advantest
As a result of these initiatives, the rate of problems resolved within 24 hours, or 48 hours in cases involving the transportation of replacement equipment or parts, improved to 90% and 95% respectively.
Strengthening overseas customer support
Since many of our customers have adopted a fabless manufacturing model, outsourcing production to subcontractors, the Advantest Group derives more than 80% of its sales from overseas markets and its market is expanding worldwide.
The Advantest Group is working to strengthen its global support system so that the Group can swiftly and effectively resolve any production equipment problems and minimize customer downtime when customers move their production bases overseas. One of our greatest challenges is to help our customers maintain stable operations of their production equipment. Accordingly, our goal for overseas customer support is to complete all the work required to resolve a problem within 72 hours (downtime) after the problem occurs. Since fiscal 2011, we have reviewed our support system and are making improvements aimed at launching a new system, as described below.
Global Support Center system
Global Support Center
Exchange Engineer from overseas
Taiwan warehouse
- During fiscal 2011, the Customer Support Center for customers in Japan was integrated with the global support division responsible for assisting the customer support functions of overseas affiliates to create a new Global Support Center staffed with dedicated engineers on standby. By providing a central contact point with engineers who are proficient in English for all support requests and inquiries from customers around the world, the Global Support Center has reduced the time required for response.
- In fiscal 2011, to provide fuller overseas support and improve the skills of engineers, a two- to three-year long-term training program has been launched which rotates global customer support engineers between domestic (Japanese) offices and newly established Asian and other off-shore locations, to help them improve their language, cultural adaptation, and technical skills. Currently four Japanese engineers have been dispatched, and four overseas engineers have been hosted in Japan to conduct skill improvement programs.
- At each overseas service center we have stocked inventories of replacement equipment and parts so that we can ship required parts from the service center nearest to each customer within 24 hours in more than 95% of cases. To provide even better overseas customer support, we have adopted a framework in which replacement equipment and parts delivered from each service center are analyzed by a centralized system based in Japan for determining and controlling inventories at each service center. In addition, to improve the turnaround time for service parts for handlers and other products, two new parts warehouses have been added at facilities overseas.
- Besides those mentioned above, in terms of production-related issues, solution engineers that work together with customers to resolve issues have been stationed in Taiwan, the US, and Japan, and technical support staff are working with the R&D division to prepare a system to improve the turnaround time for problem resolution in Germany, the US, and Japan. In addition, the Group is setting up repair factories in Taiwan, South Korea, and China in an effort to reduce repair turnaround time.
As a result of these initiatives, we achieved our response goals in more than 75% of all cases during fiscal 2011. When we are not able to solve a problem within 72 hours, we conduct systematic research to identify the reasons so that we can improve our performance in the future.
Advantest received a 10 BEST award in the customer satisfaction survey conducted by VLSI Research for the 24th consecutive year
Advantest aims to accurately understand the needs of its customers and provide them with high-performance and high-quality total test solutions in a timely manner.
In addition to the information we acquire from our daily business activities, Advantest strives to understand the needs of its customers by participating every year in the customer satisfaction survey conducted by VLSI Research, a company well-renowned for semiconductor market research. In this survey, Advantest received a 10 BEST award for the top-ten ranking companies for the 24th consecutive year.
Moreover, the sales and marketing division, system engineer division, and field service division jointly conduct an independent Advantest customer satisfaction survey once every two years. Advantest will work towards further improvements in customer satisfaction in the future by listening to the voices of its many customers and providing them with the solutions that best suit their needs.
