Customer Information Driven After Sales Service ... - RePub

2. After Sales Service
withdraw from the PC product sales in B2B and B2C markets. Simultaneously,
IBM partnered with Lenovo to provide after sales service to Lenovo customers in
the B2B market.
Significant differences exist in the after sales service management for large and
medium scale systems vs. small scale systems. In line with the discussion in Section
2.1.5, the large and medium scale systems are serviced on-site, whereas small scale systems
are serviced at a designated service facility. In addition to variations in machine
models, IBM also sells various types of service contracts to service its installed base. For
these contracts, the service commitments are organized in terms of committed response
time and repair time. The response time commitments start from 0.2 hours from machine
failure reporting. The repair time commitments include same day, next business day, and
2nd business day commitments. Within the same day category, the lowest repair time
commitment is 4 hours and ranges up to 24 hours with intermediate steps of 5, 6, 8, and
12 hours commitments (IBM, 2008).
In the remainder of this case study, we specifically focus on the B2B sector, i.e. after
sales service management with field maintenance services. As noted in Section 1.3.1, the
scope of this thesis is limited to spare parts logistics planning and execution in after sales
service. Therefore, we limit the discussion to the spare parts logistics practices at IBM.
2.7.1 Spare Parts Logistics Practices
At IBM, the Service Parts Operations (IBM-SPO) operates in close coordination with the
IBM Service Organization to satisfy the spare parts requirements for after sales service
operation. The primary question that IBM-SPO encounters for spare parts planning is
how to place the spare parts inventories throughout their service network. The IBM’s
service logistics network spreads across the globe. For efficient functioning, it has been
subdivided into various regions termed as GEOs; where each GEO is responsible for
the availability and delivery of spare parts within that geographical region. For the
Europe, Middle East, & Africa (EMEA) GEO, IBM’s network consists of almost 150 stock
locations. The service network is organized to ensure that IBM has a sufficient presence
in each region to provide timely service to its business customers. As mentioned earlier,
these customers own the after sales service contract from IBM for IBM manufactured
and non IBM manufactured products. The service contracts differ in terms of the time
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