Our gross margins are slipping due to unbilled customer rework and vendor warranty disputes, but neither Operations nor Project Management wants to own warranty remediation. How do we place and staff an unglamorous seat that neither department head is willing to absorb?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Rework and warranty claims slip through the cracks when everyone treats them as an annoying distraction from primary deliverables. Operations views warranty work as an insult to their craftsmanship. Project Management views it as an administrative hassle that kills delivery velocity. Meanwhile, cash bleeds.

To fix this, you must treat Quality and Warranty Remediation as an explicit operational seat on your Accountability Chart, not an unassigned chore. Start by defining its five core roles. These typically include root-cause defect tracking, warranty claim adjudication, vendor clawback execution, rework scheduling, and prevention feedback loops into Operations.

Do not let your leadership team debate who likes doing it. In EOS®, structure comes before people. Place the seat directly under the Integrator or Operations, depending on where your operational bottleneck sits. If you place it under Operations, the head of Operations remains strictly accountable for warranty outcomes, even if a junior technician handles the daily paperwork.

Once the seat is defined, evaluate candidates using GWC™. Does the candidate Get It, Want It, and have the Capacity to do it? You do not need a senior executive here; you need a process-disciplined coordinator who thrives on root-cause analysis and vendor recovery. If no one internally has the GWC, an existing leader must temporarily hold the seat as an interim accountability while actively recruiting or automating claims processing. Leaving it vacant or shared guarantees margin bleed.