Although it’s not a practice they actively take part in, Robert Graham, sales director for Polaris Medical Imaging, does understand why some take this approach.

“Selling entire subsystems is sort of a case-by-case basis. If engineers aren’t really sure what is wrong with a part of the system, they will throw parts at it to help get the customer up and running,” he says. “It is better to part subsystems out for monetary reasons, but sometimes it isn’t feasible and doesn’t make sense. We generally do not sell entire subsystems if we can help it as it is expensive in shipping and complicated to install.”


In an effort to try to make things as easy as possible for the customer, Glas sometimes does something like this to help with troubleshooting a problem.

“If they don't know the exact problem, we often extend slightly more lenient return terms in a hero kit situation, referring to a handful of parts where the customer is not sure exactly which one would solve the problem, so they swap the parts until they have a working solution,” he says. “Other times, the customer may want a few parts from the assembly and it may be cost-prohibitive and as a solution a package deal may be presented to offer them some additional value. This business is so unique and exciting I don't think there are any hard-and-fast rules that must be applied to for every single transaction. There are often times you will encounter a situation that you have not yet before seen and you must think on your feet to offer value and effective solutions for the customer that you may not have considered before.”

Challenges
Clark Wilkins, owner of JDI Solutions Inc., which has more than 3,000 parts for Siemens products in its warehouse, sees two big problems parts companies are facing in today’s environment.

“On one level, there is ever-increasing pressure from parts redistributors who constantly beat us down on price but are not passing the savings on to their clients. This combines with a lot of other companies that do not do rigorous QA so their overhead is much lower,” he says. “Level two, the price of the newer equipment remains too expensive to acquire the units for parts. We’re still seeing 10-year-old scanners commanding upward of $200,000 wholesale, which makes it hard to justify scrapping one out for parts.”

Parts come from a variety of outlets. Everyone knows about the usual means: parting out whole systems and opportunistic purchasing, but while these are important, the real test for any company is ensuring that these parts are in good condition throughout the entire process with stringent steps to ensure quality from acquisition to inventory.

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