Requirements checklist
What to ask for when choosing software for home appliance manufacturers.
A checklist built from how home appliance manufacturers work, to print or save as a PDF and bring to any supplier meeting.
What the software should cover
Tick each one that matters to your business.
- Model bill of materials
- Component lots and incoming inspection
- Line output and kitting
- End-of-line test records
- Serial numbers and warranty
- Rework and rejections
- Dealer dispatch and spares
Roles that need their own access
Who logs in, and what each person may see or change.
- For production planners
- For the stores
- For line supervisors
- For test and quality staff
- For service and dispatch
Reports to ask for
Ask to see each one with your own sample data.
- Output and rejects per assembly line, model and shift
- Final test failures grouped by defect code
- Motor, switch and element lots that keep returning faulty
- Missing kit parts per line and day
- Stock held at dealers and shipments, by model
- Claims under warranty split by model and serial range
- Spares sent out to settle claims
Systems it may need to connect to
Note which ones you already run.
- SMS
- Barcode and label printers
- Accounting export
Questions for any vendor
Put these to every supplier you are comparing.
- Can a complaint from a household lead to the lot?
- Does it read results from the test bench?
- Can the same model have alternative motors?
- Can we make some housings in-house?
- Does it manage dealer stock?
- How are warranty claims handled?
- Can rework be tracked?
- How do the line kits work?
- Can open orders and stock be moved in?
- Who looks after changes later?
Where the work usually breaks today
Circle the ones you recognise. They set the order of the project.
- A returned fan cannot be linked to its motor batch
- End-of-line test records sit on a tester
- Kits for the line are incomplete
- Warranty claims arrive without a build date
- Dealer stock is unknown
Prefer to talk it through? See the home appliance manufacturers page.