Maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) customers have been crucial to New Source Corporation’s growth over more than 30 years–and will remain so well into the future. The company is focused on quickly servicing MRO customers with urgent needs for critical parts.
“We want to make sure that we don’t go away from our roots, which were as a small shop that gave you quick service,” said Jamie Barron, Vice President of New Source Corporation. “We’re doing everything we can to stay ahead of the increased demand and order volume.”
MRO work has surged in recent years as the industry has recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic and accelerated. The industry has also grappled with challenges like talent shortages, supply chain pressures and geopolitical risks.
With business booming and challenges mounting, fast access to high-quality aluminum extruded products and other aviation parts is imperative to alleviating instances of and other costly problems for MRO customers.
Expanding staff
Commitment to customer service has been at New Source Corporation’s core since it began in 1992. Some of its first customers continue to place orders today because of that commitment, which has included delivering materials quickly while maintaining quality.
New Source Corporation has always been an industry leader in customer response times with standard lead times being a few days. Additionally, New Source offers expedited shipments for same-day or next-day turnaround in AOG or line down situations.
New Source Corporation is a small business with tremendous growth; growing from a small home office with three employees into a leading supplier of aluminum aerospace-grade extrusions to a team of more than 30 spread between operations in Florida and California.
New Source Corporation’s workforce has grown by more than 60% in the last two years alone. “This has helped us service our customers as our order volume has increased,” Barron said.
Customers can place orders faster and get them sooner because New Source Corporation has expanded its sales team and warehouse staff. It has also been promoted from within while doing so, such as moving people who were admins or in the warehouse to the order processing team.
“Everyone on our order processing team is well versed in every aspect of the company, not just how the orders are processed,” said Stephanie Barron, New Source Corporation’s Marketing Director and Sales Representative. “Not only does this improve efficiency, but it also helps us in understanding the full scope of our customer’s needs and their orders.”
Improving efficiency
New Source Corporation has also sped up order processing for MRO customers by eliminating low-value, time-consuming tasks for its warehouse team. For example, it is outsourcing the building of packaging materials like skids, crates and boxes.
“If someone took 10 minutes to build a crate and was doing 20 orders a day, that was 200 minutes each day for one person. Then if you added that up for all our people you had a large amount of extra processing time that wasn’t adding value in shipping orders,” Jamie Barron said.
New Source Corporation has also staggered the shifts at its two warehouses, one of which is in Florida and the other in California. It now ships orders both earlier and later in the day, collectively covering 14 hours of service time between the East Coast and West Coast.
If an MRO customer needs parts delivered to a location in the middle of the country, New Source Corporation will check which of its warehouses could get them there sooner. “If we have stock in both facilities, we look at where the customer is and we offer to ship their order from whichever warehouse is closer to them so they can get their parts even quicker,” Stephanie Barron said.
Helping MRO customers
Knowing that AOG and other problems can be costly for MRO customers, New Source Corporation has a dedicated AOG team to guarantee same-day or next-day shipments once an expedited order has been approved. “By having AOG service available, we can ship parts to our customers overnight at a competitive rate,” Jamie Barron said.
Such flexibility matters to customers, he said, including those that New Source Corporation has begun to serve internationally as it has grown. “Quick service is often overlooked,” he said.
So, although New Source Corporation continues to get bigger and take on larger contracts, it will keep its commitment to quick service for MRO customers. “By increasing our personnel and expanding our warehouse space, we are pre-emptively preparing for our growth and the added order volume” Jamie Barron said.
After all, New Source Corporation hasn’t been servicing some customers for more than three decades now by accident. “One of the reasons our customers have been with us for such a long time is because we are committed to providing the same quick service they received when they started working with us,” Stephanie Barron said.
New Source Corporation continues to make a big impact even as a woman-owned and minority-owned small business by focusing on its customers and quickly providing them with the critical MRO parts that they need.
Do you have questions about aluminum extruded products for your MRO Needs? Contact us today! New Source Corporation will be happy to assist you in quickly getting the product that fits your needs.