FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1960
1960 - 1129.PDF
FLIGHT, 22 July 1960 125 SUPPORT AND SELL ... customer; and the fact that manufacturers base their civil recom-mendations on Service experience. Ministry provisioning tends to be rather extravagant on majorcomponents, considering that the requirement is for relatively short-life, low-utilization service aircraft. That fast-moving partsare often overlooked by the aircraft manufacturers when a civil customer asks for a recommendation can also be due to the factthat Ministries provision the majority of these items direct from the ancillary manufacturers for Service aircraft, and by Servicereference numbers which are unrecognizable to the civil user. The airframe companies lack experience of military demands forproprietary parts, yet they undertake to handle the supply of such items to the civil market. Over-the-counter Service The more experienced operators arebecoming wiser now and, following the trend of US airline prac- tice, current procedure is to reduce to a minimum the partsinventory held by the operator. The airline begins operations with an inventory of consumable parts, plus the minimum require-ment of change or rotation items. For the remainder, he will expect over-the-counter service with guaranteed delivery providedby the manufacturers.' The private- or business-aircraft owner should not expect to hold any parts himself; he should haveover-the-counter service for anything or everything, in exactly the same manner as the average car owner. Guaranteed avail-ability of parts would have sold Bristol's projected business air- craft—had it materialized—far better than any glossy brochure. If the British aircraft industry is to provide this guaranteedparts-availability, and to ensure that our customers will have faith in its integrity, a major effort is required immediately. It willinvolve planning, organization, method and co-operation on the part of the whole industry. A few firms have started to provideover-the-counter service in one or two countries abroad; but these are individual efforts, and, with the exception of Rolls-Royceand Armstrong Whitworth, usually lacking guaranteed delivery. Provided that it is a co-ordinated effort, the adoption of theAirpart system should go a long way towards achieving the desired object, but manufacturers' individual preferences and con-venience will have to give way to the convenience of the customers. One Civil Customer for Parts Under this suggested scheme,Airpart London would be the sole civil customer for spare parts, placing its orders direct on each manufacturer, airframe, engineand ancillary, and not through the agency of any middleman. The staff of Airpart should include men thoroughly experiencedin the usage of spares under every condition of civil operation. Specialist groups covering airframes, engines, systems, and work-shop and airport equipment would be sub-divided into sections. Each section would be solely concerned with a particular manu-facturer or group concerned with similar products—e.g., hydraulics —and would be staffed with men specially trained in the productsof their respective suppliers. These provisioning groups would be responsible for stock planning the Airpart distribution centres,and would ensure that each centre carried a full range of parts to meet every anticipated demand from the operators in the area. The supplies department of Airpart London would be respon-sible for progressing deliveries from the manufacturers on the one hand, and on the other for meeting the demands of distribu-tion centres. It should not be necessary for a large stock of parts to be held at the main London centre other than a strategic reserveof parts which could be moved on demand to any area to meet an emergency. There would, however, have to be a receiving anddespatch stores, and a shipping and export department of con- siderable capacity. Parts would as a rule be packed by the manu-facturers to a standard specification, as for the Services; a substan- tial packing department should not therefore be required. The primary purpose of Airpart is to ensure that the servicewhich it provides leaves nothing to be desired when compared with that of our foreign competitors. It must be a service thatin efficiency is second to none. Expense must not be spared to achieve this purpose, and only the best in staff and equipmentshould be considered. From the start, the system should be built up around the most efficient data-processing equipment availableand which can be linked with similar facilities in use with many of the world's major airlines. The industry cannot continue to relyon £12-a-week clerks when the rest of the world is using IBM. Area Distribution The area distribution centres would be com-prehensive establishments equipped to meet the parts require- ments of all the operators of British aircraft in their areas, otherthan RN, RAF and Army. In addition to stores holding the full range of parts there would be the shipping and forwarding depart-ment. In the less industrialized areas, such as the Middle East and Far East, there might also be workshops capable of carryingout component overhauls for the small operators lacking their own facilities, and modifications as required to components instock. In industrialized areas, such as Canada, this work could be contracted-out to local factories. Parts could also be obtainedlocally in these areas, from the branch factories of British manu- facturers where local manufacture had been arranged by theparent companies. National distribution centres in each country have not beenincluded in the layout of this scheme. These might be an advan- tage in countries where there are large numbers of British aircraft,for example the United States, but as a rule it would be preferable not to introduce an additional middleman into the chain of supply.By the time that the Airpart system could be established on a world-wide basis, there should be at least one type of long-range,large-capacity freighter, i.e., the Canadair CL-44, in regular opera* tion. It is envisaged that the whole system of supply would beby air freight, excepting for a relatively small number of items which are too heavy or too large. The possibility of Airpartoperating its own fleet of freighter aircraft might also be worth considering. Alternatively, freighters could be chartered for regularscheduled delivery flights around the area distribution centres. Whole Industry Included This scheme is, of course, intendedto cover all British aircraft, and others incorporating British equip- ment (Caravelle, Friendship, etc.), but not machines belongingto the British fighting services. It should not be forgotten, too, that there are many products of the industry which do not fly,but which may need parts to keep them going, ground starters and airport radio for example. There should be room, therefore,for every manufacturer listed in Flight's annual "Britain's Aircraft Industry" number to take part in the Airpart system if his pro-ducts require pans service. There are many manufacturers, par- ticularly the small firms, who would be glad to be relieved of thetrouble incurred by export work. There should be no serious objection to inviting the participation of overseas manufacturerswith British associations in their products. Canadair, de Havilland Canada, Fokker, and Sud-Aviation, for example, could feed theirown parts into the Airpart system. The facilities of the area distribution centres should includeparts for aircraft on regular schedule through the area, even though they are normally based in other areas. There would,for example, be obvious demands for Britannias and Comet parts from time to time, from the Bombay and Hong Kong distributioncentres. The cross-supply of parts between centres would be an additional facility to overcome temporary local shortages shouldthe supply from London occasionally fail. Re-orientation of Thought It is realized that the suggestionswhich have been put forward in this article would cut across all the existing arrangements, such as they are. This is, however, afashionable practice within the aircraft industry at the moment, and for the supply and distribution of the industry's spare partsthere would not appear to be the risk of any serious loss if we started afresh from scratch. No doubt there are local difficultiesto be found in this scheme, such as Customs barriers, political instabilities, profit agreements with present agents and so on; butdifficulties are there to be overcome, and the scheme will work if it is made to work. The operative words are CAN and WILL, andthere is nothing which cannot be put right in the industry's parts service, with a fresh outlook, enthusiasm, and support for the CAN DO men. SUMMARY # Airpart is a co-operative scheme for the supply of the industry's parts,following the pattern of the services' system, which could do much to remove the "sell and forget" stigma. 0 The main distribution centre in London should be the industry's largest customer for parts, and the limit of contact for the manufacturers. 0 The area distribution centres, the operators' limit of contact, should be able to provide anything from a crash-kit to a split pin from any manu- facturer, on demand, over-the-counter. # The distribution centres should be the only middle-men between the manufacturers and the operators. # If we cannot support we shall not sell. CINE-CAMERA CO-OPERATIONA RECENT joint announcement links the names of W. VintenLtd, and the Mitchell Camera Corporation of California, in a new venture under the name of Mitchell-Vinten Sales Corp Iric,who will have offices in Glendale, California and New York City. On this side of the Atlantic a further step is contemplated,whereby a new company will be formed to provide servicing in London of Mitchell equipment and to utilize Vinten facilities tomanufacture the American firm's products. The US company have for the past 40 years specialized in cinecamera and projector construction (their first camera is still in use). Present products include 35mm and 16mm high-speed camerasoperating at 128 frames per second, a 2iinX2|in motion camera working at 80 frames per second and a 35mm under-water cameraspecially built to record the pneumatic launching of Polaris. W. Vinten Ltd, whose works are at North Circular Road,London NW2, need little introduction, their equipment in the film, aircraft, research and television fields being well known inthe aircraft industry. The new arrangement will serve to promote still further the sales of their products in the USA.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
