GE Aircraft Engines Customer Profile

GE Aircraft Engines Central Distribution Facility located in Jacksonville, Florida, is the main spare parts inventory location for GE’s military jet engines. Operated as a joint venture with AAR, the Jacksonville facility warehouses, distributes and coordinates the maintenance on the F404 and F414 military jet engines. These engines are used on the F/A-18 Hornet fighter aircraft, but are also used on several other military aircraft, including the F-117A Stealth Fighter. Engine Cores returning from the field in need of repair and maintenance are staged in the facility and sent to the repair depot with the spare parts required for repairs. Repaired engines are returned and inventoried until they can be returned to the field.

Business Problem

Every part is Serialized or Lot controlled requiring a great deal of accuracy to ensure the correct part is picked when fulfilling an order for a specific engine for the repair depot. In addition, inventory is maintained for the Navy, Air Force and Army which all use GE engines and independent accountability is critical for each branch. The only practical way to manage the warehouse, with all the data entry and validation required, was to deploy a real time bar code data collection system. GE looked to eNSYNC solutions for their in-depth knowledge of the Distribution Components of IFS and their “out-of-the-box” bar code solution for IFS: ScanWorks™.

Solution Delivered

eNSYNC consultants working with IFS and GE's core team personnel conducted a site survey and requirements gathering exercise on ScanWorks™ and recommended starting with several initial transactions from the 30+ pre-built standard ScanWorks™ transactions. After testing, several transactions were modified to accommodate special military tracking requirements unique to the Aerospace & Defense industry. One unique requirement was the development of the RMA transaction. GE’s system utilized this IFS function to track engine cores to and from the repair depot and needed to quickly issue and receive the engines based on the RMA number. GE also had extensive printing requirements, which led to the development of a “Change Printer” transaction to allow labels to be printed at various locations throughout the warehouse.

Special labeling with real time validation and tracking provided by ScanWorks™ enabled GE to quickly locate and validate the proper parts. Using ScanWorks™ integrated solution ensures them of upgradeability and investment protection which are critical issues to GE as they continue to improve on their process and add new IFS features in future releases.

In addition to the special RMA Transaction, the following ScanWorks™ Transactions for IFS Applications Version 2002 were delivered:

1. PO Receipt
2. Inspect PO
3. Move to Stock
4. Change Inventory Part Location
5. Receive from Transit
6. Change Printer
7. Change Site
8. RMA Receipt
9. RMA – Move to Stock
10. Part/Location Inquiry
11. Picking
12. Cycle Count (Count per Count Report

Project Deliverables:

Wireless RF Scanning for:

-10 MobileWork Users
- Symbol 6500 Handhelds
-12 TransWorks Transactions
-1 Serialized Part Control Transaction

eNSYNC Solutions worked with GE to utilize existing Symbol 6800 RF equipment. ScanWorks™ is hardware independent.

Benefits Received

Previously warehouse personnel had to manually check Part numbers, serial numbers and inventory locations against paper files to ensure proper parts were picked then go to a desk to key in all movements after the fact. Today inventory is maintained at its highest degree of accuracy while clerical work has been vastly reduced. Efficiencies gained from ScanWorks™ has allowed for greater inventory turnover without additional warehouse personnel.

Customer Feedback

“Given the nature of our business accuracy and tracability are critical to our operation. eNSYNC Solutions delivered the solution that allows us to meet very strict military procedures with greater efficiency. – John Roth, GEAE Project Manager.