The most valuable
technology asset in business and government today is
telecommunications. Without it, businesses, government
agencies, and service organizations would be unable to
function. The use of wireless communications has never
been greater, and it has become an essential part of
our nation’s business management and emergency
response system.
In order for the
telecommunication’s giant to maintain its service
standards, its network operations needed fast and
reliable access to critical spare parts. The inability
to do so would cause loss of revenues, threaten
business continuity, security, and emergency response
management.
When the global
telecommunications giant needed to reduce their capital
expenditure on critical spare parts, they began looking
for a transportation and logistics provider they outlined
a number of essential requirements for the program to be a
success:
 |
- The program would
have to provide access to a variety of critical
parts needed to make repairs.
- It would be
necessary to maintain approximately 150 of redundant
critical spare parts at designated warehouses to
supply each of the Company’s 80
switch sites.
- Failed parts would
have to be replaced the same day, and within a 2
hour delivery window usually between the hours of
11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m.
- The goal of the
program was to lower operating and administrative
costs while preventing service interruptions by
providing parts to technicians to be exchanged
during “off peak” hours.
|
Working
together in a collaborative effort with the company,
AFC crafted a reliable, flexible, and predictable
solution that was also cost effective. AFC proposed
and implemented a plan that entailed the opening and
management of 13 “hub” facilities that would be
strategically placed across the country whereby they
could reach each of the customers 80 switch sites
within 5 hours drive time from one of the hubs.
 From each of its 13 hubs, AFC would be able to react
in a timely manner to deliver a replacement part to
any of the 80 switch locations that experienced a
critical parts failure. A collaborative effort between
AFC’s VP of Sales and IT Director also resulted in the
development of a secure website from which AFC could
provide the company with live "up to the minute"
access to the inventory in any of the 13 parts hubs.
In the event that AFC received a critical spare parts
“case” shipment to deliver from the AFC hub in San
Francisco to the company’s switch site in Santa Clara,
Ca. AFC would coordinate the proper part being pulled
from the inventory and delivering it to the site
within the company’s prescribed delivery window. The
delivery window would be within a 1 to 2 hour period
the same day.
As the critical spare parts are being shipped to Santa
Clara, AFC automatically replenishes the San Francisco
hub with a replacement part from the Central hub in
Kansas City. The company then automatically restocks
the AFC Kansas City hub with the necessary replacement
part. The deployment of this program has greatly
reduced the customer’s capital expenditure by reducing
the number of sites in which they stored critical
spare parts from 80 down to 13.
 Since beginning the
critical parts hubbing program, AFC has performed
approximately 1660 successful critical spares case
shipments. There has been only one service failure
which arrived 10 minutes late, and they have
maintained a 99.993% on-time delivery. They have also
maintained inventory at 13 hubs with 0% shrink and no
damages. This solution has saved the
Telecommunications in excess of 17 million dollars in
capital expenditure savings.
This Critical Network Operations Program is another
example of how remaining responsive, flexible and
dependable benefits AFC Worldwide Express’ customers.
|
