Toshiba Cosmos Supplies & Parts Management

4. Supplies & Parts
Management

Guidelines and Recommendations
for Parts and Supplies Management

A Unified Approach to
Parts Ordering &
Delivery

As of the time of writing, Toshiba
has a number of different parts
ordering systems in operation at its
various locations around the world.
In the future, however, it is hoped
that a single solution can be estab­lished.

The time taken to fill an order
varies from system to system, but it
is our objective to dramatically
reduce the turnaround time so that
a purchase order placed one day
would be delivered the following
morning. This would make it
unnecessary for dealers to maintain
large inventories as they presently
do, to name only one benefit.

In fact, Toshiba hopes to imple­ment a system in which dealers
have zero inventory due to the
speed at which their requests for
parts are met.

A system introduced in the U.S.
and in Europe that is enjoying great
success, utilizes the Internet.

Toshiba America went online in
October, 1997 with an Internet site
from which their 350 independent
dealers now order parts and sup­plies, as well as machines and
options.

Europe also has a parts online
ordering system via the Internet
called "TOPAS" - Toshiba Parts
Assistant System. All subsidiaries,
distributors and German dealers
can access this system, order parts
and follow order status.

Orders for parts placed on the
World Wide Web by 5pm are filled
and returned by overnight delivery,
expediting the process significant­ly. Dealers and service personnel
have indicated they greatly appreci­ate this overnight service. Moving
online has also proven so popular
with dealers, it has received an
85% endorsement rate as their pre­ferred method of ordering. The suc­cess of this approach certainly
makes it an attractive option in the
search for a unified solution to the
ordering and dispatch of parts and
supplies.
(In Germany an overnight delivery
system is also in place, in which

4•1

parts reach their destination before
the opening of the following day's
trading.)

Our goal is total
customer satisfaction

To achieve total customer satisfac­tion with the order and dispatch of
parts and supplies, three important
criteria should be met:

as smoothly as possible, an under­standing of the unique characteris­tics of service parts is required.
Here, in brief, are a few of those
distinctions:

(i) Even after a copier has been dis-

continued, service parts should
be kept in stock for the number
of years stipulated in the service
warranty.

1. Delivery should occur in the
shortest lead time possible. Cus­tomers want any interruption to
their copier's productivity kept to
an absolute minimum.

2. Inventory should be reduced to
what is essential only. This will
serve to reduce costs while eas­ing the demands on service tech­nicians who often have limited
storage space in their vehicles,
as well as minimal space at the
dealership warehouse.

3. The above two points should be
realized in a cost-effective man­ner.

Usually service parts flow from
Toshiba, through the distributors
and dealers, to the service techni­cians and then on to the customer.

In order to achieve this movement

(ii) There are a tremendous number

of parts (more than 80,000).

(iii) While a customer may be pre-

pared to wait for a new copier if
delivery is delayed, they are
unhappy about delays in the
delivery of service parts if their
existing machine breaks down.
Delays give Toshiba a bad image
and tarnish customer purchase
motivation for future replace­ment copiers, and so can have
far-reaching consequences.
Furthermore, if replacement pur­chasing makes up a large part of
sales in a given market, then this
could have a major negative
impact.

(iv) It's difficult for anyone in the

chain to predict demand for
parts, including service techni­cians.

4•2