Aerospace & Defence

The world of aerospace and defence is complex, demanding and precise. It’s a world of high-volume products, multiple suppliers across the globe and critical interdependencies. This sector is also where Waer was founded and consequently, we have a huge amount of experience specific to the A&D supply chain.

Many large corporations in this sector have generated significant direct savings and efficiency improvements as a result of partnering with Waer. Today we are justifiably proud of our record in A&D, and are continuing to help companies in this sector to take advantage of the benefits that our applications and our people offer.

Our A&D customers include major assemblers, tier-1 and tier-2 suppliers, and third-party providers of supply chain services.

We have a keen sense of what it takes to deliver competitive advantage in A&D, and our application software is closely aligned to this. The following provides an introduction into where we can usually help:

Global Visibility

WAERlinx cuts through the fog of extended supply chains to enable visibility of any batch, lot or serial-numbered product in real time, at any location within a complex, global network.

Of course, with visibility there’s also control including, for example, innovative features for consignment stocking, VMI, ownership control and ownership transfer from one party to another.

Knowing exactly what you have, where it is and who owns it is obviously critical in an AOG scenario – but equally critical is knowing what you don’t have but should!  Waer solutions can give you this.

Being able to demonstrate adherence to quarantine, inspection and qualification standards is, we know, essential for quality compliance, and WAERlinx is designed to meet and exceed these standards.

Point-of-Use Replenishment or Kanban

Just-in-time direct line feed is an established lean methodology that has been, for many years, at the core of what we do.

Full integration with barcode scanning technology, coupled with global visibility, are proven to eliminate constraints that are often caused by physical distance between a point of use and its source of supply.

Dynamic, large scale operations with high transaction volumes are very much part of what we support, and such is the effect of our solution that intermediary buffers of inventory – such as forward stocking locations – can usually be eliminated, while at the same time improving bin fill rates and material utilisation. It works!

Seamless Integration – WAERflow

Without exception, our A&D customers have asked us whether we can make it easier for them to integrate their back office systems. In response, we developed the WAERflow application, to enable disparate systems to be integrated together, quickly and without risk.

As well as eliminating repetitive data entry and spreadsheet dependency, this capability strengthens relationships between trading partners; it accelerates and streamlines the flow of information; it improves the accuracy of information; and it also helps to lower the cost of administration.

WMS

WAERlinx is the only available system for warehouse management that offers ‘best of breed’ functions for aerospace & defence.

Of course, the system is delivered with all the characteristics of a first class WMS, including warehouse modelling, storage management, directed task management and flexible rules for inbound and outbound processing.

What stands it apart however, is that the application comes with specific controls for warehouse management by customer, programme and project. Further, document management, track & trace, product identification, substitution and product lifecycle management are each supported by functions that have been developed primarily in response to the needs of the A&D sector.

To give just a few examples:

•   Inventory may be stored exclusively for MRO purposes inside a warehouse that exists primarily to support original equipment assembly.

•   Using a unique identifier, a product may be tracked by batch number, lot number, serial number and certificate of conformity number (plus a variety of other characteristics), from its original source of supply through to the actual aircraft to which it is fitted.

•   We provide dedicated functions for products that need to be grouped together in kits prior to delivery. Kits can include, for example, products with multiple grip lengths. After the kit has been used, any unused components can be returned to the source of supply in their original container. Because full traceability is maintained, any such products may then be re-used; and the subsequent savings that can arise are significant.

•   Product variant and alias handling are also fully supported; providing yet another area for increased control and increased savings.

Supply chain possibilities