Never Buy A High Usage Aircraft Expendable Again

What if you never bought another aircraft expendable or consumable again?

How much time and money would that free up for you? In a world of high stress and reactive decisions, dealing with aircraft expendables is a tedious task. From all the line items and quality assurance specifications, it gets overwhelming fast. You spend a lot of time stressing over these items when you should be worrying about your most important objectives for the day.

Dealing with these pesky little aircraft parts takes time for most airlines and MROs. It get’s even worse when you have a long list of these to procure. From the coordination and delivery, time and money slips through the cracks.

In our fast paced aviation world, you’re so used to working under a reactive state, but being proactive is much more efficient.

But guess what? It’s normal and I’ve seen hundreds of airlines and MROs fix this problem. This gives them more time and money to focus on their core objectives.

Consume aircraft expendables the proactive way

The definition of proactive is “…creating or controlling a situation by causing something to happen rather than responding to it after it has happened.” For your expendables it’s having what you need, when you need it, right before you have to consume it.

When the maintenance and engineering team tells the procurement department that they need 50 lines of washers, hi-loks, tape, wire, and switches, many of the times this list is procured in a rush with the best options being overlooked.

A lot of times I see airlines and MROs procure all 50 lines from 30+ different sources. This is a huge mistake in supply chain efficiency. They just doubled their freight expenditure, not to mention all of the additional processing tasks they’ll have to do.

One way to reduce this is to have a partner that’s an expert in working long list requirements. Another way is to think proactive. What can you do to beat the chaos? What can you do to pre-plan and have expendables shipped to you with the least amount of time on your shelves? How can you organize your supply chain so you have what you want, when you want it, and where you want it?

A Just In Time and On-Demand aircraft expendable and consumable solution is about streamlining your operation.

This solution isn’t for everybody. If you’re a small airline and MRO who doesn’t see the same high usage expendables on a regular basis, then building your high usage expendable and consumable list for forecasting is a waste of your time. You won’t have enough volume yet to experience the benefits, but working with a key partner for your long lists will still give you tons of benefits.

On the other side, if you are a large airline and MRO who procures the same high usage material, the best option would be to automate delivery. Just think about the benefits of not having to cut POs, overstock or worry about shipping from multiple areas. The savings is huge.

The strategic framework this is built on is to reduce stress, be more efficient, and be proactive in your decisions.

P.S. We have an amazing Just In Time and On-demand program for our airline and MRO partners. Check it out by clicking here.

A Romantic Story Of Just In Time Inventory & Decision Making Fatigue

Face it. You dislike fumbling around with aircraft expendables just as much as I like making my bed.

Both are messy.

I’m a terrible bed maker. My corners are never crisp, my pillow is never fluffed and my side is always sloppy. Just ask my wife. Okay, maybe don’t ask her.

Although I’m sloppy at making my bed, being sloppy and unorganized with expendable procurement is much more costly.

I see it time and time again. Partners who procure the same seal, over and over, each time with a greater urgency. They spend thousands of dollars for a measly $300 seal.

It happens far too often. We quote a seal 3 days prior, the quote becomes urgent on day 2, the PO is placed on day 3, and now you’re in an AOG situation.

For a seal (or insert another high usage expendable or consumable)…

We can blame it all on the maintenance crew all day long, but the real problem is in the planning and decision making. 

With so many decisions being made by you, it gets overwhelming and daunting.

Everyday you make last minute decisions to avoid AOGs. It’s common and your not alone.

Decision making fatigue, it’s a real thing

Would you believe me if I told you that you only have so much energy to make a certain amount of decisions in a given day?

Willpower is like a muscle. You can only stress it out so much before it gets fatigued and tired. Each time you make a decision you deplete your willpower fuel tank. Your willpower fades with the more decisions you have to make.

Should you ship it this way, should you call this person, how are you to resolve this problem? Do these questions sound familiar? 

Every time you answer these, you're zapping your willpower reserves. When your willpower is fading and your brain is tired of making decisions, it’s easier to make irrational decisions.

In a 2008 American Psychological Association journal their “…present findings suggest that self-regulation, active initiative, and effortful choosing draw on the same psychological resource. Making decisions depletes that resource, thereby weakening the subsequent capacity for self-control and active initiative. The impairment of self-control was shown on a variety of tasks, including physical stamina and pain tolerance, persistence in the face of failure, and quality and quantity of numerical calculations. It also led to greater passivity.”

Think without thinking and make better decisions by making less

What are you to do? Well that’s simple, make less decisions.

By creating a strategy where you can make less decisions and still  guarantee expendable delivery is a no-brainer. You simply automate the procurement process.

A Just In Time Inventory program does most of the heavy lifting for you.

You determine what high usage expendables you use over a 12+ month period and every month a predetermined amount is delivered to you on time. You eliminate the decisions to decide who to send the Purchase Orders to, how and where to ship, when to track your material and call your supplier and how to follow-up with orders.

Your material shows up when and as needed, no more fumbling around with administration tasks and excessive decision making. 

By automating your high usage expandable procurement you’ll cut your decision making fatigue down and make better decisions on higher value projects.

You’ll also reduce your freight costs, reduce your inventory levels, minimize AOGs, guaranteed fixed pricing and availability and significantly reduce administrative tasks.

So remember this, in order to reduce decision making fatigue, make less decisions and automate your expendable procurement process.

P.S. Our Just In Time Inventory saves  thousands of hours every year for relative administrative decisions, click here to request how it can work for you.