Copyright © 2009 James Taylor. Visit the original article at The Institute of Warranty Chain Management.
Glen Griffths gave an update on the Institute of Warranty Chain Management. Glen freely admitted that his purpose was to sell the Institute of Warranty Chain Management and, in particular, the membership benefits of the institute. ICWM costs just $125 for individual members which, as he pointed out, is not much compared with the $72B spent on warranty!
ICWM is an independent, non profit organization founded in 2006 focused specifically on warranty management. It is intended to be a central point for information and to establish, promote and advance warranty management as a recognized profession. It supports training and standards and other solutions in warranty chain management and tries to be a unified voice for advocacy and leadership. Over the last few years they have established the organization, got members, held a first AGM and begun delivering training.
They have more than 50 white papers in various categories like litigation, extended warranties, benchmarking, finance, service and support, systems, policy, designing for warranty etc. They are focusing on developing training that can be used both as standalone modules and as part of a certification program that is under development. This program will have 48 hours of compulsory foundational training and some selection from 32 hours of electives as well as a project. 2011 is the target to have all these pieces done.
Individuals and corporations can become members. They have 50 members already signed up (they have only just started taking members) and are now focusing on adding members having put the infrastructure in place. If you are interested in joining the institute, check out www.icwm.org.
They want to know what people are looking for, what will get them to join and what kind of training and certification is interesting. Volunteers are already giving a lot of time to the institute but they are looking for a core of volunteers to provide answers to requests for specialist information and help them find suitable content.
