Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the process of managing a product through its entire lifecycle. Typical PLM stages consist of concept, design, manufacture, use, operation, maintain, support, sustain, phase-out, retire, recycle and disposal with each stage being managed by a different team or division. In addition to purchasing end-of-life (EOL) service parts and discontinued excess stock inventory, PowerON Services provides processes to support a manufacturer’s PLM parts support during the most problematic areas in the PLM .

• New Product Introduction (NPI) – Service Parts inventory is hard to find during the initial stages of a New Product Introduction.
  • Most parts are utilized to make additional units of the new product, but even the best products have a measurable failure rate right out of the box.
  • SOLUTION PowerON receives 100-1000 units of the finished goods product at NPI for services parts breakdown or “on-demand” parts reclamation based on actual service event(s) demand.

• Injection Molding Storage – Once the manufacturing process has ceased for a particular part or product, manufacturer PLM staff place a Lifetime Buy (LTB), which is a final purchase of parts meant to support the products entire current and future support needs, up to 7 (seven) years.
  • The biggest problem with LTB is that they are educated guesses based on the known failure rates from the existing product (some are only out for 6 to12 months prior to being discontinued).
  • Order too many units on a LTB and the manufacturer will carry excess parts stock until it is sold off as excess or scraped.
  • Order too few units on a LTB and the manufacturer will need to purchase additional units
    • from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM)
    • from the open market
    • upgrade service event customers with new replacement equipment
  • SOLUTION PowerON receives the actual parts injection mold, 10-100 sample units from the final run, sample plastics used in the manufacture of the part, along with any additional support material required to re-manufacture the product. Items are cleaned, cataloged, inventoried and made available to appropriate PLM team. Based on need, PowerON or the manufacturer can build required parts that meet all form, fit and function, criteria by simply utilizing the stored Injection Mold.

• Excess Inventory Purchase – Over time, a manufacturer will excess service parts and discontinued excess stock inventory.
  • Scrapping the excess inventory represents a total loss of revenue (in fact it adds additional expenses to the total loss of revenue)
  • Selling the excess inventory represents revenue from the sale, but a potential loss of revenue if the excess inventory can be used to create a new service event
  • SOLUTION PowerON purchases the excess inventory for resale or can wholesale excess inventory into the open market for the manufacturer. All product can be audited, disassembled or de-branded to avoid future service events triggered from the excess inventory.

• Alternate Parts Sourcing – Most all manufacturers have a list of parts or assemblies that are “hard to find.” These parts have far surpassed the original LTB and are no longer available from the manufacturer’s primary product sources.
  • SOLUTION PowerON Services has created an Alternate Parts Sourcing solution for manufacturers to utilize their own install base to resolve service part shortages. Additional benefits are reduced service events, increased sales and increased customer satisfaction (current customers with service events that are resolved quickly). The solution has 3 (three) stages:
• Phase I – Emergency Parts Locator Tool A fast and effective way to source hard to find products from the marketplace. Required parts can be searched by any available Model Number, Part Number (upper level, lower level, Manufacturer Part Number), and/or Serial Number Range. Additional search functions can be added per program requirements.
• Phase II – Planning Tool. Corporate, Education and Enterprise customer’s computer assets can become part of a “Just in Time” inventory program. The Alternate Sourcing parts search engine can search all supplied Corporate, Educational, and/or Enterprise customer data that have ordered items containing the requested parts, as well as, all trade-in quotes and live contracted Trade-in vender inventories. The search engine will list potential parts sources that have the largest possible inventory matches available down to the least possible inventory matches in an effort to provide the best possible opportunity to source the required parts.
• Phase III – Lifetime Buy Avoidance. With use of the Alternate Sourcing Tool, the process of acquiring current Corporate, Educational and Enterprise customer inventories become predictable enough to use data as a planning tool to help reduce LTB stock quantities.