Customer Case
KLM Engineering & Maintenance
KLM Engineering & Maintenance is a subsidiary of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The head office is based at KLM home port, Schiphol, and service the whole world from here. They are responsible for KLM's own fleet but they also offer other airlines their services. The maintenance is done on many different ways: in its own premises at Schiphol or at service stations around the world. This brings with it a variety of complex part flows.
"Our total inventory includes 25 000 different items to be delivered quickly, efficiently and in good condition. We estimate that we have reduced our total packaging costs by 20-30%."
- Jos De Kleine
- Manager Logistic Development
- KLM Engineering & Maintenance
Improvement Potential
With a variety of packaging including more than three thousand different packages, delivered by roughly twenty different manufacturers and distributed to five different locations, the company faced many problems. The packaging was difficult to find because it was hard to know which hangars they were stored in. Many return packages were lost in transit around the world. As a result, many components were put into the wrong packaging - resulting in delays and damage to sensitive spare parts. Packaging was purchased at the last minute, even if the right packaging was in stock in the next hangar a few hundred meters away.
Global Quality and Cost Control
The company decided to outsource the packaging supply to Nefab. Nefab set up a complete packaging solution for maintenance, repair and overhaul operations. A new standardized packaging system was designed, reducing the number of items to around four hundred. A new database answers the questions "What", "How" and "Where", and the entire returnable packaging system was made traceable using RFID. KLM has achieved full control over the packaging flow, and deliveries are made from Nefab warehouses to KLM one per week. Nefab's global presence has also helped ensure quality at other facilities than just Schiphol.