struktura

Performance

Problem

A major aviation company was conducting after-sale service activity twice as slowly as its chief competitor. Customer dissatisfaction complaints from important clients regularly trickled back to the CEO, who demanded rapid performance improvement in this service. At the same time, a cost reduction programme was launched in order to compensate for the euro/dollar exchange rate and to free up funds to allow for the development of new programmes.

Solution

A joint effort between international after-service teams enabled the contractor to put in place a structure of continuous development solutions to anticipate client needs. Beyond bringing critical components together, this approach permitted the preparation of the project as a whole, which then only needed to be tailored to each client’s specific request. The choice of those solutions was critical in light of the investments in design, development and stocks involved, and also when taking into account the company’s cost cutting programme. A statistical analysis of the previous three years’ activity, exchanges with the engineering office in charge of new programmes, along with workshops focusing on the teams’ experiences all aided in generating proposals for solutions to be developed. Those proposals were later approved by senior management and taken into account within the operating budget.

Result

Thanks to those solutions and to other initiatives, the average cycle time for projects of this activity was cut by more than 50% and the operating margins were increased by over one million euros.

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