Organizations used to have a
secret sauce which gave them an advantage over others. Today, the scenario is
different. In the age of communication, it is not difficult but impossible to
hide what you are doing.
Now when there is very differential,
it is of paramount importance to do the business efficiently so that enough
value is created for all stakeholders.
Efficiently doesn’t mean that
doing the job at lowest cost possible but getting the work done at optimum cost
without compromising on quality and without exposing the organization to undue
risk.
AMC management is an ever
existing, industry agnostic area, every organization deals in.
Organizations, be it any
industry, purchase a lot of capex equipment every year and these have to be
maintained to support business operations with limited/permissible down time.
A simple example would be an AC
running in offices, or generators for power back up. We will find plenty of equipment
that run to make business run.
Higher lead time or in other
words higher down time exposes the organizations to a huge risk. Operations can come to complete halt and
strategic customer can be lost within a span of few seconds.
That is how critical it is to
maintain all critical equipment.
From procurement perspective, AMC
is a recurring cost which mostly increases with time and something in which
business doesn’t want to take any risk.
Be it introduction of new AMC
partner, shifting from non-comprehensive AMC to comprehensive (There can be different
type AMC services which are discussed in a another of this blog), changing the
SLAs so on and so forth, all expose organizations to some amount of risk.
Procurement needs to work in such
a manner that business is delivered as expected and right cost is paid for it.
AMC management has different
parts to it. It is to do with managing inventory of all assets (which is
dynamic in nature), it is to do with tracking warranty dates, it is do with
having updated partner details and maintaining the record of all maintenance
activities, TTR (time to repair), records of downtime, performance records so
on and so forth.
In this article, I would like to
focus on the concept of Poka Yoke in AMC. To ensure that all activities
pertaining to AMC are done effectively with no or significantly lower scope of
failure.
The objective is to ensure that
AMCs are renewed on time so that AMC partner can provide continuous support and
at right cost. If AMCs are not renewed
on time, it may lead to exorbitant reinstatement charges as well.
Elixir for organizations when it
comes to AMC management: AMC Management software and its effective usage.
Who are the OEMs of well-designed/developed
AMC software are covered in another article.
AMC management system shall
capture inventory of all assets, will send auto triggers to concerned
stakeholders on nearing the warranty/AMC end date, shall capture the partners
who are doing it with the cost and performance which will come in handy while
selecting suppliers for next cycle. It will provide a single window exhibiting
when the asset was purchased, from whom, what is the warranty period, which
issues were faced and resolved, what is the cost trend, is the product obsolete
(out of sales/support) so many other important information which is useful for
buyers as well as business users.
It provides a systematic and
scientific approach to deal with AMCs.
It can provide a much needed
visibility and most importantly an edge on efficiency which does a long way in
running the business the way it should be.
Process changes one can do to save
on AMC cost is covered in another article on this blog.
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