By Adam Stapel
Downtime is a costly word for all manufacturers. Thousands of dollars are lost every minute a machine is out of production. In addition, the cost of downtime is not always equal. Unplanned downtime often occurs due to a failure and can increase expenses exponentially. Getting your equipment running again quickly is always the priority, which is why OEM parts should be a critical piece of your parts stocking strategy. Original equipment manufacturers can offer unparalleled access to the parts you need to keep your business moving in the most-critical times.
Recently, a PCMC customer experienced unplanned downtime that escalated to the level of crisis. A major fire left a piece of machinery inoperable and in ashes. As chaos ensued for the customer, a PCMC team mobilized to provide a rapid response and established on-site support in less than 24 hours. More than 7,500 parts arrived within the following days and service tech support remained available around the clock. Due to the availability of PCMC parts and support, the customer returned to full production in just 16 days.
“This situation highlights the important relationship between manufacturers and OEMs,” said Matt Schleicher, PCMC Parts Value Stream Leader. “OEMs understand when a manufacturer orders a part, they don’t need it tomorrow; they likely needed it yesterday. Availability is key to the value we provide, so we take a proactive approach to anticipate manufacturers’ needs, but we are also flexible to respond to emergencies with tight deadlines.”
Even when your need for parts does not fall into the category of crisis, OEMs can also provide unmatched knowledge and short lead times for ongoing machine maintenance too. At PCMC, a team of customer support, schedulers, buyers and machinists works solely on executing parts orders. In addition, thousands of parts sit in a dedicated warehouse ready to ship, most of the time within hours of placing an order.
And that kind of turnaround time means you can soon be on your way to getting your equipment back into production.
