What’s in a Warranty?

By Dr. Bill Cardoso, Creative Electron Inc.

Last month we announced that our TruView x-ray systems would be the first in the industry to be supplied with a three-year warranty. This came as no surprise to our customers who have been enjoying the reliability of the TruView product for many years. But what does it mean to someone looking to invest in equipment for the first time and why is it so much more than ‘just a warranty’?

Our Product, Your Peace of Mind

The tagline we used in our advertising and promotion of the warranty was not created in a smoke-filled room at some swanky ad agency on Madison Avenue. It was created by our team because it is fundamentally the reason we gave the warranty in the first place. Our product, our confidence, our quality, and our experience, have all combined to deliver peace of mind to our customers when they purchase a machine.

We have provided the warranty because we believe in the solutions we provide and because we are confident that they will operate robustly, consistently and reliably in our customers’ hands for a long time with minimal maintenance.

What a Warranty Says About a Brand

As a purchaser, when I see an industry leading warranty, two thoughts spring to mind. Firstly, I can relax with the assurance that I am covered if something does go wrong. But more importantly, I think ‘who’d offer an extended warranty on a product that isn’t reliable? They must have nailed the quality of the product’.

This is certainly the case with the TruView. We don’t get warranty claims under the current warranty and we don’t see reliability problems on the hundreds of legacy machines in the field. We’re proud of our quality and reliability, so we’re very happy to put our money where our mouth is and guarantee that reliability.

Better by Design

My smartphone, like most, has a twelve-month warranty, and perhaps only a twelve-month life. Built in obsolescence they call it, and we’ve all read plenty of stories about the performance dropping off as products get replaced by newer shinier versions. This should not be the case with high dollar value capital equipment. It should be designed for the future and built to last.

Griffin Lemaster, Creative Electron’s vice president of engineering explains, “Each one of our TruView x-ray systems is designed and built with quality in mind. This three-year warranty reflects our team’s dedication to deliver the best x-ray systems in the market. We work extremely hard to give our customers the peace of mind they deserve when buying one of our x-ray systems.”

Protecting Your Investment

Technology is changing faster than ever and it seems every few months there are new solutions on the market; and some of those solutions are to problems we didn’t even know we had. Customers all tell us that they need to feel that when they select a piece of equipment they won’t regret their choice twelve months later, because a newer version is out, or a new demand has sneaked up on them.

Designing machines that are future proof is challenging, particularly now when Industry 4.0, automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and who knows what else start to impact our industry. Keeping an eye to the future and having an open pragmatic approach is essential to ensure the equipment we ship today can be utilized for many years to come.

This is part of the design DNA at Creative Electron and one of the reasons we are so active in associations and research activities. We build machines with a view to future demands and not just the current challenges facing our customers.

A Matter of Pride

We’re very proud of the three-year warranty we announced last month. That’s because we’re proud of our technology, we’re proud of our machine, and above all, we’re proud of the wonderful team that has designed and built those machines.

There’s a reason Rolex provide a five-year warranty and ten-year service intervals. As a consumer, I believe there’s a lot more to a warranty than simply knowing it can be fixed if it fails. For me, it speaks volumes about the brand and how the company views its own product!