The recent article in AIN covering the Rolls-Royce and PMA business surrounding the Model 250 engines was nice to read (“Rolls, Extex, Aviall sort out new business basis,” June, page 82), but it’s a shame that the writer did not solicit input from the former Rolls-Royce AMC network. You remember AMCs? We were the guys who, some 20 years ago, did all the work to support the 250 engines in the field. We were then called distributors because we handled all the parts requirements–warehousing, forecasting and shipping them wherever needed. The original nine distributors supported the world at various geographic locations. And with their service-driven philosophies, I believe the success of the Model 250 engine is the result of the 25 years of dedicated effort by those people and companies.
In the article, Richard Huckle, Rolls-Royce’s vice president of customer operations, helicopter business, commented that the company (then Allison) had only nine distributors, and that it needed a distribution expert (Aviall). Actually, the company already had these “experts.” The original nine distributors, however, were pushed aside by an interim management group that bought Allison from General Motors. The “new” management’s philosophy seemed to be to take the profitable aspects of this business away from the distributors. (Incidentally, at that time Aviall was one of those distributors.) This was accomplished by selling authorization status to 27 companies and considerably reducing the discount to the distributors. Along with this, in an act of incredible stupidity, the part-distribution operation was taken on by Allison from a base in Louisville, Ky.
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