Monday, April 19, 2010
The “Spares vs Repairs” Debate
Can there be anything more frustrating than running around the house in the morning looking for your car keys only to find them sitting on the kitchen table – exactly where you left them the night before? That’s a direct byproduct of discursive and distracted thinking. In the early stages of client engagements we often see similar thought patterns plaguing carrier and OEM equipment repair strategies. Repairs are typically viewed as a necessary component of the service chain but other obvious economic and environmental repair-related opportunities constantly escape the guise of most managers. Why? Lack of visibility into their ecosystem and how it directly relates to their repair strategy. It’s that simple.
But change is on the horizon. At long last, we’re beginning to see the ‘spare v. repair’ conversation gaining traction among carriers and equipment manufacturers as the need to inject fresh ideas into their supply chain becomes too much to ignore. When we talk about repair strategies, ‘keys’ equate to visibility into the equipment install base, the ecosystem spares pool, planned upgrades and de-installs, and new managed service agreements. That may all sound complicated but once a dialog has been started about capturing asset data as opposed to physical assets, the ‘keys’ emerge pretty quickly. And one of the great benefits of visibility is that it reveals assets an organization already owns.
From a carrier or OEM perspective, finding assets you already own sitting idly should be like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Why deal with the costs and headaches of repairing equipment when a spare is ready to be put back into service immediately?Just as assets move from manufacturing and into the service and reverse logistics chains, the strategy for optimizing assets must also evolve. If service managers are to get the maximum value from reverse logistics flows, a different viewpoint is essential. Asset visibility is the single most important factor in reducing service managers’ repair costs. And that’s the power of a reuse strategy.
