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Southwest Airlines is interested in understanding how other operators setup tool kits in Maintenix and provide visibility to batch tools that are included in these kits.  

We set up Tool kits as assemblies since Maintenix does not have tool kitting capability, and an assembly approach was the best choice provided by IFS at the time.  Tool kits WILL show serialized tools as children of kits, however batched “TOOLS” i.e. sockets, extensions, etc. are NOT showing in kits because they are issued out of stock to be put into the kit.  Batched inventory is never shown as installed on assemblies.

The issue we are having is that Technicians do not have visibility to inventory that is contained in these kits.  We often have to AOG parts, when in reality the inventory was in kits that were in stock.  Southwest Airlines is curious how other operators are managing this gap in functionality.  

We are at creating an external database to track the batch parts contained in a tool kit, but this is not ideal solution when Mechanics have to make quick decisions, and going to another tool to cross reference data is not very efficient.

Regards,

Shon Creese -  Southwest Airlines

 

 

Hello Slcreese, 

Kits are no different from assemblies except the parts are not mechanically linked. If there are parts that are not serialized, they still should be controlled as they come in and off the stock with the exception that you cannot track one exactly part path. Doing that, the operator would be to say how many that specific part they have in stock and which kits have them on.

The operator can serialize parts themselves if there is this need. This is not something entitled only to manufactures. If serializing everything is to much complication, they may identify the key ones where they can apply this strategy.

Also, batch parts seem to be unexpansive. Why not put them in the fly away kits or have them in the bases to avoid moving them?

I think applying these three things can minimize the issue to a point it goes more to the end of the line, but I will dig more on the subject with other colleagues.

Bye

AF supply Chain is outside of MTX , we do not use this functionality.

Hi Shon,

I can shed a little bit of light on what another Maintenix operator has done for tool kits.  It’s a similar idea to the external database approach that you referenced, but still contained within Maintenix using bin locations.

The top level tool kit part number is defined as a KIT class with part use TOOLS.  The kit contents are defined on this kit part number for reference.  However when the kit inventory is created, the inventory for the contents exist in Maintenix, but are never directly added to the kit inventory.  Instead there is a corresponding BIN location in local tool crib where the contents can be found.   In Maintenix, only the top level kit inventory is checked out and checked in to tie the tool kit to tasks and monitor checkout, but the contents remain in this special location in Maintenix.

This setup does require particular diligent processes to maintain the inventory in the right locations.  But the approach avoids some of the known limitations around tool kit contents in Maintenix.  And it overcomes some of the challenges compared to an external system, you’d still be able to search for the batch inventory in other kit locations using Maintenix as opposed to switching to another tool.

Hope that helps

Stewart has authored a KBA that collects all the known issues for the intersection of KITS and TOOLS.

 

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