Outsourcing of Aviation Maintenance Practices and the Effects of Globalization
Matthew Wilkerson
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide
May 16, 2016 Abstract
Within the aviation industry outsourced maintenance practices have become increasingly more prevalent to maintain current assets. There is generally three processes currently being utilized by the airline industry: outsourcing specific maintenance needs, in-house operations, and lastly, a hybrid approach, which entails a combination of outsourcing and in-house. How these are applied and to what extent are driven by each company and their own unique needs. This paper compares and contrasts the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing maintenance practices as well as the effects of globalization on the airline industry. Outsourcing of Aviation Maintenance Practices and the Effects of Globalization
Outsourcing is defined as the process utilized when a company decides to subcontract its business processes or functions to another company; therefore, instead of hiring employees to perform a task, the company (outsourcer) enters into an outsourcing arrangement with another firm to provide these services under contract for a certain price and period (Motiwalla & Thompson, 2012, p.268). This paper expands on the notions of outsourcing and the effects it has had on the airline industry by briefly discussing the advantages and disadvantages associated with outsourcing and the effects of globalization on the
In general, the outsourcing is hiring the foreign workers/company to do a particular task, as opposed to hiring domestic workers/company. Besides the outsourcing, the international purchase is an essential activity of companies. In the trend of a booming global economy, a company only focuses on its core value and hire suppliers to supply the necessary product and service. The relationship between companies are complicated and interdependent.
The Airline industry is a large and constantly growing industry. It facilitates economic growth, international investment and world trade and is therefore central to other industries as well for globalisation. There are various forces which lead to globalisation in airline industry. Key drivers of change are forces likely to affect the structure of an industry; sector or market. (1).
Vega, D., Pamplona D., & Oliviera A. (n.d.). Assessing the influence of the scale of operations on maintenance costs in the airline industry. Retrieved last February 25, 2015 from http://sitraer2014.pcs.usp.br/wp-content/uploads/Apresentacoes/19-11- 2014/Session5/04-Daniel-Alberto-Pamplona.pdf
Seventy percent of the aircraft’s production and designing was outsourced to over fifty Tier 1 suppliers compared with only thirty-five to fifty percent that was traditionally outsourced in the production of other aircrafts (S. Tang and D.Zimmerman, 2009: 77). In late 2008, over twenty-seven thousand Boeing employees went on strike due to the company’s outsourcing policies and what its effects on job security (Doornbos n.d.). The strike lasted for fifty-seven days and it would cost Boeing a total of three months in production time, an estimated $100 million a day in revenue, and approximately $7 million a day in net income (Isidore
The dawn of the outsourcing era. Many large U.S. corporations cultivates outsourcing faster than we can imagine. The trend that began in the late 1970 and picked up speed in the 1900s with the opening trade with China, India, and Eastern Europe (“Outsourcing: What’s the true Impact”). In its broadest sense, outsourcing is simply contracting out functions that had been done in-house—a longtime U.S. practice (“Globalization: Threat or Opportunity”). Subsequently, outsourcing is an essential part of globalization; and it is the combination of markets through the cooperation of internalization, federal, and state governments with corporate companies to produce products on a reduce production cost, and offer services on lower labor cost. When a U.S. manufacture product, and buys material from an intermediate supplier from out of the country rather than producing them in-house, that is what is called outsourcing. Also, when U.S. corporation hires outside contractor out-of-the-country to do U.S. call center services for less labor cost that is outsourcing. When a company deals out its operational task, such as payroll, accounting, and software operations that is outsourcing. Obviously, all of these examples seem to benefit and in favor of the corporations. To get the clear understanding of outsourcing for major corporation perspective, I have interviewed IKEA’s U.S. Deputy Retail Country Manager Rob Olson about outsourcing—Swedish
Outsourcing is a method used by many corporations in which their products are manufactured in foreign countries often for cheaper labor.This method method of productions has it’s pros and cons.
In today’s society, outsourcing has become a very critical and controversial issue to companies and other countries. Outsourcing is known as offshoring as an organization’s use of an outside organization for a broad set of services. As technology continues to grow and advance more, outsourcing becomes more popular. Many American white collar jobs are being taken over by foreign countries around the world. Almost every occupation or career in the United States has some effect of the outsourcing. As a result, many Americans become unemployed and financially challenged; being that outsourcing can increase the United States unemployment rate. Employees who live in the US rather keep jobs in the country to create more opportunities. On the other hand, few stakeholders
In today’s business industry, the globalization process has become an important aspect and fundamental force. The elements that contribute to globalization is the environment, culture, regulation and technology and production. While the advancements globalization has increased greatly, so has the advancements in airline industry with their aircraft (Shevell, 1999). Globalization also provides a great amount of potential profits to nations and their corporations (Button, 2008). Air transportation has evolved into a major industry (Kroo, 1999). The airline industry’s continuously grows and is facilitated through its international investment, tourism, world trade and economic growth (Kroo, 1999).
Outsourcing can be a means to perform the core functions of an organization effectively by having more time focused on the activities critical to the delivery of services to customer. The non-core activities are performed by the leaders in that area which will help to achieve better efficiencies. Outsourcing can substantially lower costs, help to access better technology and use innovative ideas etc.(Robert,2001). The advantages of outsourcing are: Cost savings:
Outsourcing is a severely underestimated threat to the United States’ economy, which may eventually lead to our next financial crisis. Damages from outsourcing span throughout all levels of the US economy, although the effects of outsourcing are especially devastating to those of the lower class. The threats presented by outsourcing are acknowledged by both of the major presidential candidates: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In order to prevent the next financial crisis, we must take immediate action.
"Its been said that arguing against globalization (and many of the issues related to globalization) is like arguing against the laws of gravity." This statement comes from Kofi Annan, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001 and also became the seventh secretary general of the United States (The Nobel Foundation, 2001). The quote introduces, in its broadest sense, the issue discussed in this paper. While the general idea of globalization is not our primary focus in this report, one of the most controversial subjects to arise out of the globalization phenomenon, offshore outsourcing, is of particular interest to us. Offshore outsourcing (hereafter used interchangeable with offshoring) has been around for some time now. The
Boeing adopted the radical change approach for designing and developing the 787 Dreamliner not only to attempt to create new aircraft through the innovative design and advanced material, but it also drastically changed the production process. With a $10 billion dollar project in mind, the goal was to reduce the financial risks involved as well as the new product development cycle time. Meanwhile, Boeing produced a remarkably complicated supply chain that included greater than fifty partners in over 100 locations all across the globe. In addition to the complicated supply chain, they experimented with various firms in diverse areas to align complementary skill sets. Furthermore, this was the first time the company outsourced the two most crucial parts of the plane, the wings and the fuselage.
Aircraft maintenance is very important for aviation industry and Aircraft are required to be maintained after a period of calendar time or flight hours or flight cycles. Aircraft maintenance is the inspection, repair, overhaul, modification of aircraft or aircraft component. Aircraft maintenance generally includes such tasks those tasks required to restore or maintain an aircraft’s systems, components, and structures with Airworthiness Directives or Service Bulletins and this is highly regulated, in order to ensure safe and correct functioning during flight. Aircraft maintenance requirements vary for different size and types of aircraft, experience which most aircraft need various type of preventive maintenance every 25 hours or less of flying time, and minor maintenance at least every 100 hours. Maintenance is influenced by some kind of operation, climatic conditions, storage facilities, age, and construction of the airplane. The profession of Aircraft maintenance requires extreme knowledge and adept expertise in performing the ingrained tasks. The aircraft maintenance engineer who is on duty he has a great responsibility to work professionally to ensure the safety of aircraft, customers and maintain the reputation of the team or company. The aircraft maintenance engineer normally works in an aircraft hangar and line maintenance and The aircraft maintenance engineer will undertake a number of processes including They may specialize by working on particular aeronautical
1) Introduction to airline industry 2) Drivers of globalisation using yip’s model 2.1 Market globalisation 2.2 Cost globalisation 2.3 Globalisation of government policies 2.4 Globalisation of competition 3) Localisation- arguments against globalisation 4) Pestle Analysis 5) Porter’s 5 forces analysis and their application to Airline industry 5.1 Rivalry amongst Existing Firms 5.2 Threat of substitution 5.3 Threat of new entrants 5.4 Power of customers 5.5 Power of buyers 6) Opportunities and Threats of Airline industry 7) Internal analysis of Virgin Airlines: Strengths and Weakness 8) Financial Statics of Virgin Atlantic Airline 9) Strategic Changes of Virgin
Cathay Pacific (CP) is an interesting case because it is an example of a company attempting to work in isolation, vertically integrated and developing all their needs themselves. Truth is however; in today’s interconnected economy a company working independently simply can not compete. The world has become too dynamic and contains too many other companies developing better solutions to rely solely on one’s internal organization. Cathay eventually recognized this fact and turned to outsourcing to focus on its core competency, customer service and transportation.