CONNECT 28
6 SPEAKER PERSPECTIVES • 5 XCHANGE GROUP QUESTIONS FOR THE SUMMIT • CONNECTED DATA • PARTS RETURN • AI IN THE REAL WORLD
What If The Problem Isn't The Data...It's What We're Doing With It?
CONNECT 28 begins with 3 signals that can be easy to separate but costly to ignore:
- A TAC case gets closed.
- A part comes back with “No Trouble Found.”
- A warranty claim gets paid.
And somewhere in that process, a signal that could have prevented the next problem gets lost.
That’s the conversation.
This week’s newsletter takes a closer look at the questions being raised across the MAPconnected network and the people coming to gather at the Service & Warranty Lifecycle in Detroit to challenge how we handle them.
Read on for CONNECT’s key topics of the week including:
Meet 6 New Summit Speakers
Discover the critical service, warranty, and aftersales challenges they’ll be addressing at the Summit.
Preview 5 Xchange Group Discussions At The Summit
Get a look at upcoming peer benchmarking topics plus the broader Xchange Group activity schedule.
New Field Services Connected-Data Xchange Group
Hear Jennifer Jones Wheeler frame the key connected-data questions driving this new benchmarking community.
Parts Return & Analysis Meetup #3 Blog
Explore the latest insights, takeaways, and discussion highlights from the group.
Sponsor Partner Spotlight: Circuitry.ai
AI-powered solutions are helping organizations improve service operations, diagnostics, and decision-making.
Six New Speakers Announced. 6 Different Pressure Points.
What happens when you put people in the room who don’t all see the problem the same way?
Shane Schmitt of Ford Motor Company, Miles Thompson of Hyundai Motor America and Dan Dobbs of Advantage Technical join the Hybrid TAC session to tackle a question every technical assistance organization is confronting: How much should TAC be solving and how much should technology be solving?
Mike Roberts of MR Insights takes on a much bigger question in the October 19 workshop: Is warranty still an operational burden or can it become a strategic advantage?
Tyler Betthauser of The Car Conservatory goes straight at one of the industry’s most frustrating outcomes: What does “No Trouble Found” actually tell us and what happens when we accept it as the answer?
And Craig Stack of Truepic brings another challenge into the room: Where can AI improve analysis without removing the human judgment that makes the decision meaningful?
These aren’t four disconnected sessions.
They’re different views of the same lifecycle problem: finding the signal, understanding it and doing something with it.
Questions We Don't Think Have Easy Answers.
The Summit will serve as the 4th meetup for the Xchange Group members who have been collaborating virtually throughout the year around shared goals and common challenges. Each group will have 3 dedicated opportunities to meet during the Summit, continuing conversations that go beyond traditional benchmarking and best practice sharing.
The objective isn’t to create another list of best practices. It’s to create candid conversations about the processes, technologies. and organizational challenges that don’t work perfectly today and to learn from peers who are navigating the same realities.
TAC Technical Assistance Centers
When does a TAC case stop being a technical question and become a quality signal?
Warranty Administration
Are we measuring what actually matters or simply what our systems make easy to measure?
Field Services Connected Data
If the data already exists, why are we still discovering problems after the customer does?
Purchasing & Supplier Cost Sharing
What information do OEMs and Dealers actually need to make supplier recovery defensible?
Parts Return & Quality Analysis
When hardware, software and field conditions intersect, who is really responsible for finding the cause?
And those are only five of the conversations.
Find the full list of Xchange Group topics on the main webiste including topics for the other Xchange groups includng the Financial Products & Insurance and Recall, Customer Campaigns & Legal bringing the total to seven peer working groups.
The Data Is There. So Why Are We Still Suprised?
Connected-vehicle data. Dealer repair orders. Warranty claims. Technician feedback. Customer complaints. Parts-return information.
The industry has more signals than ever.
But having the data isn’t the same as connecting it.
Jennifer Jones Wheeler, Former Global Lifetime Warranty Chief at Ford Motor Company, is helping frame the questions behind the new Field Services Connected Data Xchange Group:
- Can we detect an emerging issue earlier?
- Can we prioritize the right field action faster?
- Can connected data improve diagnostics instead of simply generating more data?
- And who owns the decision when the answer crosses organizational boundaries?
The new Xchange Group will be launced at the Service & Warranty Lifecyle Summit. Express your interest to join the group by taking the Survey and receive a BOGO (Buy 1 get 1 Free) TICKET Offer and the complete survey results!
Watch Jennifer's Pitch For New Members To Join The New Xchange Group Conversations
“No Trouble Found" Isn't Always The End Of The Story
Parts-return analysis loses value when a component arrives without enough field context, when a no-trouble-found conclusion closes the file too early or when the result never reaches the people responsible for corrective action.
The Parts Return & Quality Analysis Xchange Group is digging into what happens after the part comes back and whether today’s processes are actually getting organizations closer to root cause.
Meetup #3 focused on four connected challenges:
- Better field context
- Going beyond No Trouble Found
- Connecting analysis to supplier accountability
- Reducing turnaround time and inventory pressure
Because a returned part shouldn’t simply become another transaction.
It should become evidence.
The full Parts Return Xchange Group Blog #3 will be published Thursday in the MAPconnected News Hub.
Actual AI Work. Not AI Hype.
Circuitry.ai has been a valued Silver Partner within the MAPconnected network for the past three years.
But the real story isn’t the partnership itself. It’s the meaningful work and industry collaboration taking place behind the scenes.
Highlights from this year’s collaboration include:
- Supporting AI pilot initiatives with MAPconnected OEM members
- Partnering on an AI-SWLM Think Tank webinar featuring CARS Protection Plus
- Participating alongside AI-SWLM Think Tank at the June Club Study hosted by Logisnext
That is the type of partnership MAPconnected values: long-term collaboration focused on solving real service, warranty, and customer experience challenges, not simply sponsorship.
One Year Ago We Asked: What Can Better Data Change?
As a 2025 Summit Speaker John Correia of Connected Strategy Advisors brought experience from GM, Ford and advisory work to a conversation about data-driven warranty processes.
The question still matters.
Because technology doesn’t fix a disconnected process.
People, evidence, process and judgment have to connect.
And that is exactly where the 2026 Summit conversation is heading.
The People Behind The Conversations
The 2026 Service & Warranty Lifecycle Summit and the year-round MAPconnected peer network are generously supported by organizations investing in the industry’s next chapter. Meet them there at the Summit!
PLATINUM Partner
ServiceNow
GOLD Partner
Upstream
SILVER Partners
Circuitry.ai • Pegasystems • Sedgwick • MR Insights
BRONZE Partners
TruePic • Syncron • WarrCloud • Advantage Technical • Certum
These organizations don’t just support an event.
They help create the environment where OEM leaders can compare what they’re doing, challenge assumptions and move ideas forward.
The Questions Are Getting Harder. Thats A Good Thing!
The biggest challenges in warranty and aftersales no longer sit neatly within a single department. They require collaboration across service, quality, engineering, customer experience, and leadership.
Join us. The conversation belongs in a room filled with the people who own these decisions.
Find them at the Summit.
OCTOBER 19–21 • 6th Annual Service & Warranty Lifecycle Summit
Westin Southfield Detroit
Three days of workshops, leadership sessions, peer discussions, Xchange Groups, technology conversations and the kind of candid benchmarking you can’t get from a webinar or a white paper.
Come with your questions.
Bring your problems.
Leave with a better view of what others are doing and what you might do differently.
Connect Isn't Another Industry Newsletter.
It’s a running conversation.
One week it’s a TAC metric.
The next it’s an AI pilot.
Then a warranty study, a parts-return problem, a connected-data question or something an OEM leader says that makes you rethink your own process.
CONNECT brings those threads together.
Because the most valuable industry insights aren’t always the finished answers.
Sometimes they’re the questions that make you stop and ask:
