In the March 2023 issue of Avi Trader MRO Aerospace Magazine (Edition #108) Mark Shimizu, Vice President Sales at AerFin reflects on his experience that some operators are starting to request longer term agreements than previously. “Potentially in an attempt to reduce total contract pricing and perhaps to lock into fixed pricing for a longer period to mitigate exposure to extraordinary escalations,” he notes. Shimizu has noticed that ad hoc exchange activity is continuing to increase as airline, lessor, OEM, MR O and other parts suppliers are suffering from prolonged delays of their owned material returning to inventory due to continued TAT issues at their chosen workshops. “At AerFin, we are increasing our vendor performance measurement activity to ensure that our high priority operational critical items are returned back into stock with minimal delays to ensure maximum inventory turns are achieved.” Shimizu continues.
Mathew Punter, VP Repairs at AerFin, chips in saying as a consequence of current supply chain challenges there is a general increase in repair turnaround times (TATs) across the board, driven mainly by man-power shortages and piece part and raw material production delays. He says this, in turn, is resulting in a longer OOST (Out of Service Time) for components for pool providers, meaning that pools are having to increase in volume to accommodate this and cover the extended OOST’s.
“Inventory metrics and parameters are now monitored and adjusted with even more insight and diligence to ensure maximum availability, utilising not just reactive statistics but also industry insights and OEM updates to anticipate future challenges at a macro level,” Punter states. He reports that currently, the situation is very fluid, with new challenges every week to specific products, but with careful planning and proactive action AerFin have been able to stay ahead of most challenges to ensure their pool operators are not impacted by these global issues and their operation remains uninterrupted.
