Operations: Policy and Strategy
Introduction It is very important for an organization to have well defined objective. A well-defined objective facilitates development of strategies and policy thereby creating value for customers. Operation Strategy Operational strategy is essential to achieve operational goals set by organization in alignment with overall objective of the company. Operational strategy is design to achieve business […]
Should Infrastructure Spending Be Centralized?
Donald Trump has raised the issue of America’s crumbling infrastructure during his election campaign. He has periodically mentioned that American economy needs a bout of infrastructure spending. Estimates state that the infrastructure overhaul will cost the Trump government more than $1 trillion. However, the United States is already deeply in debt. Even though they have […]
Components of a Project Plan
Introduction This article details the high level project plan and the components of the same. A project is a success if it meets the objectives of time, cost, technical and business. Project objectives are defined in the preliminary project scope statement. As mentioned above, a project is deemed complete if the project objectives have been […]
Operational Transparency
As children, we have always had to prove to our teachers or our parents that we have been working. The homework book was proof that we have spent our time productively and would often calm down angry parents and teachers. It seems like the same principles also apply in corporate life! Harvard Business Review has […]
The Argument against Planned Obsolescence
Planned obsolescence is often considered to be a part of the capitalist ideology. The supposed logic behind planned obsolescence is that capitalist companies put inferior components in their products. As a result, these products do not last as long. Since the products break down sooner, the customers are forced to buy new products. Opponents of […]
When you buy any Computer or Electronics Hardware or equipment, normally one of the questions asked to the sales person is “What is the Service Support” provided by the company.
Today the brand image or market demand rides not only the quality of the product but on the quality of service support too. Service support is critical in industries like Computers, Telecom, Aero spares, etc. In all cases the response time and availability of the spares become critical. In all cases corporate installations demanding onsite support coupled with critical downtime service level measurements have pushed the suppliers to set up an efficient spare parts supply chain.
Take the case of an installation of a server in a bank’s central processing division which cannot afford to be down at all. The company who installs the server is required to ensure that service engineer is available at site during normal hours and on call basis on 24 × 7 basis. It is not enough to have the engineer attending to or being available at site; the required spare parts need to be available.
Critical and high value spare parts have to be made available in a nearby warehousing location and logistical arrangements are required to be made to reach it to the site in a fastest and quickest reach time, which is a few hours in most of the cases.
The site engineer most often can perform diagnostic functions and report back to the service team. The service support team would then escalate the matters to the technical experts who get involved in solving the problem. All of the coordination and problem solving along with logistics arrangements is required to happen in a matter of hours. Such critical performance levels are documented in the service agreements and in most cases 99% up times are required to be committed by the company supplying the server.
Similar situation exists in aero spares parts supply chain too. Airplanes can develop snags in any location and not necessarily at the base where they operated from. Therefore, the logistics of having to locate the defective part, requisitioning the part besides the request being directed to the central spare parts warehouse by the 3PL service provider and managing to airlift or courier the part in the fastest mode is the normal requirement in this industry.
Most of the parts are high-value parts and cannot be stocked or warehoused in all locations as inventory. Airplanes cannot be grounded for a long time which would result in heavy losses to the airlines. The down time allotted for preventive maintenance itself is very less.
Aero spare parts supply chain has also been built around processes to ensure fastest lead times and ready availability and immediate retrieval of the right component.
In most cases the essential spare parts are kept in stock at the country level based on the number of installations or volumes of sale under each category of product. In case of non availability the parts are called for on urgent basis from a regional distribution center normally available at a regional level servicing a continent and flown down on urgent courier mode.
In all cases ensuring minimum downtime is the key factor that drives the spare parts process which involves logistics service providers, warehouses, customer service teams and technical teams working in tandem to ensure customer satisfaction.
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