Improving Asset Management with ILS
Integrated Logistic Support (ILS) was developed for improving the asset management capability of the Defence industry. However, Quorum has argued for some time that its potential value for non-defence applications is still somewhat overlooked.Â
Quorum’s ILS experts are known for delivering solutions which deal with some of the toughest supportability challenges and perform in the harshest environments. So, why aren’t more land, sea and air asset management requirements outside the defence sector benefitting from the many advantages of ILS thinking and its proven processes?
Shaun Simes, Quorum’s Business Development Director talks about ILS and improving asset management…
Competitive manufacturing versus whole life costs
Products designed for supportability deliver lower whole life costs. They are likely to be more reliable, maintainable and disposable. As well as treading far more softly on our planet’s resources.
So, you would expect industries outside the defence sector to want to benefit from any advances in supportability thinking, whether it is defence related or not. From this perspective it makes sense to invest upfront to ensure an asset can perform optimally for the whole of its life and be managed as responsibly and cost-efficiently as possible downstream.
However, there is often a significant gap, particularly in non-defence industries, between products designed to optimise the manufacturing process and products designed with supportability front of mind – products and programmes that can offer lower whole life costs and better whole life performance.
“Products and programmes that can offer lower whole life costs and better whole life performance.”
This is because the bulk of the responsibility for the maintenance of the product moves on from the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) once the product has been cost-competitively manufactured and sold on to its end user.
The benefits of mature ILS disciplines
Yet, Quorum is seeing encouraging signs of an increasing appetite for improving product supportability at the design and development stages in non-defence sectors – shifting the primary focus on cost-competitive manufacture.
“In recent months, we have received more non-defence asset management support requests than ever before…”
In recent months, we have received more non-defence asset management support requests than ever before, especially from energy companies and other utilities.
This is a potential indication that more industries are seeking to benefit from ILS defence experience and ILS expertise across land, sea and air.
Our hope is that non-defence asset management performance will be enhance by tapping into mature ILS disciplines and supportability engineering expertise. After all it has been tested, proven and continuously improved since ILS was created by the US Army in 1993.
Changing economic, environmental and political landscape
While we like to think our message that ILS can support non-defence asset management objectives is getting through, we suspect renewed interest may also be the result of the changing economic, environmental and political landscape.
Industries and people alike are being impacted by a rapidly rising cost of living, escalating material costs, as well as skills shortages and replacement part shortages for maintenance activities.
This is happening as our global responsibilities are also front of mind too with sustainability objectives and incoming legislation sure to increase the priority being placed on supportability and investment in responsible asset management.
In summary
Cross industry collaboration has the potential to accelerate the capabilities of supportability engineering. And engineers can achieve so much more working together, sharing knowledge and experience across the defence / non-defence divide.
Quorum remains committed to promoting this. We want to share the benefits of ILS expertise and its asset management methods, developed for defence applications, to help non-defence industries address supportability concerns.
We are looking forward to helping clients from multiple sectors improve their whole life performance for a more sustainable future.
Find out how ILS can help your business – Book an informal chat with Shaun
+44 (0)1952 671950
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We’re ringing the changes and talking to Ian and Trevor; reflecting on how they’ve grown the business and the upcoming transition.
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