Bombardier’s product support operation has spent the past year tackling one of the more difficult problems facing aircraft manufacturers, the no fault found issue. As a result of these efforts, Bombardier now offers a guarantee that if a part arrives inoperative (dead on arrival), the operator will not have to pay to ship it back to Bombardier or for labor to replace the part.
Components that are returned by operators as defective then tested and found not to have faults have long bedeviled manufacturers, and, said James Hoblyn, Bombardier’s president of customer services, “that drives a lot of frustration.” The year-long effort pulled together a multifunctional initiative, he said. On each of the Bombardier business aircraft platforms, the company identified the top 10 worst performing components. “And we’re working hard to drive down the rate of no fault founds,” Hoblyn said. “It’s complex. It’s a whole circle of misfortune.”
