OVERVIEW: During new product development, R&D engineers consider a wide ran
ge of often conflicting requirements, including product features, cost, qua
lity: and manufacturability. Another factor, which companies often neglect,
is to ensure that products are easy and economical to service and support-
i.e., to install, to maintain, to repair, to operatc, etc. Product support
is essential for achieving customer satisfaction in many industries, includ
ing high-tech sectors such as computing as well as "low-tech" sectors such
as domestic appliances and the like. Lending companies recognize both the i
mportance of product support and the significance of evaluating support req
uirements at the design stage by using Design for Supportability techniques
. This enables them to gain competitive advantage from customer support and
earn significant revenues.