Jet Support Services Inc. (JSSI)

Aircraft Services Provider Improves Supply Chain Efficiency and Reduces Costs

Jet Support Services Inc. (JSSI) wanted to expand its aircraft maintenance services business, but was hampered by labor-intensive and disjointed processes that were inefficient and prone to error. To revamp its technology infrastructure and processes, JSSI first consolidated its customer information into a single repository. This eliminated its legacy systems’ lack of integration and set the stage for an efficient data workflow requiring minimal human intervention. Using a service-oriented architecture approach, JSSI created a sophisticated customer portal that connects customer-input data with an automated back-end solution built on Microsoft® BizTalk® Server, Microsoft Dynamics™ GP, Office SharePoint® Portal Server, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The integrated solution enabled JSSI to increase revenues and profits by dramatically improving its processes and reducing transaction time.

 

Situation

As a provider of services for aircraft maintenance, Jet Support Services Inc. (JSSI) offers private and corporate customers a variety of options to manage the maintenance of their jets or helicopters. Customers pay for engine and airframe maintenance monthly, with the fee based on variables such as hours flown, contract term-length, scheduled versus unscheduled maintenance costs, and engine-only or complete airframe coverage.

With our new system, the time it takes to create invoices has gone from 10 days to 10 seconds. John LeBeau Director of Financial Processes and Systems, JSSI

JSSI’s business model is unusual in the aviation industry, but designed to provide the ultimate in flexibility for its customers. The financial model is similar to health-maintenance organizations (HMOs)-—where patients pay a fixed, monthly rate for traditional visits to the doctor, and receive reduced rates for major procedures. In the same way, JSSI’s financial service helps amortize their customers’ maintenance costs and moderate the financial impact. It also makes maintenance expenses more predictable.

But the process JSSI used to collect flight information from customers was inefficient and prone to error.

Customers received 12 coupons annually, one for each month. Each month customers would submit a coupon by mail to JSSI’s bank with the number of hours flown (this is the metric used for aircraft maintenance). The bank would, in turn, send payment information to JSSI’s accounting department on a daily basis. JSSI staff would then manually enter the information, generate invoices, and apply the pre-paid funds to customer accounts.

Customers frequently erred in reporting the number of hours flown, however, necessitating a lot of back-and-forth dialogue. This customer-billing process required anywhere from 6 to 16 person-hours per day, according to John LeBeau, JSSI’s director of financial systems.

Another reason for the lengthy billing process was the disparate nature of JSSI’s technology infrastructure. Employees had to access three separate, non- integrated, applications-—a single-user accounting system, a database, and a hosted contact management system-—in order to complete a billing transaction.

Lack of integration hampered staff throughout the organization. “Sometimes an employee had to go to more than one application to get a true picture of the customers’ balance,” explains Sonya Taitt, a manager in the IT department and program director for the MyJSSI online portal.

Inefficiencies plagued salespeople as well. When using paper-based systems, salespeople typically submitted incomplete customer data. This documentation was routed to a staff person in the contracts department, who reviewed the data to ensure that terms-—both financial and semantic-—were correct. The contracts person then scheduled a diagnostic survey of the aircraft. That paper report went to the contracts staffer, who then transmitted the entire package to the legal department. Finally, the paperwork was reviewed by JSSI’s top executives before being sent to the customer.

“We often had a hard time finding all required documents to complete a contract,” laments LeBeau. “The salesperson would have to nudge people to get the paperwork moving, because they wanted their commission.”

Inefficient processes clearly inhibited JSSI’s growth. Lucrative markets in the Middle East and South America were off the radar screen for a company dependent on paper-based processes and the physical delivery of coupons. JSSI’s executives realized they needed a system that would enable employees to be more productive and to serve customers and partners better. “Our business process had outgrown our computer system,” says LeBeau. “We needed to make major changes.”

Solution

In the first stage of revamping its technology infrastructure and processes, JSSI deployed Microsoft Dynamics™ GP and Microsoft® SQL Server™ to consolidate customer information into a single repository. This provided the foundation for a standards-based architecture and eliminated the legacy system’s lack of integration.

Once Microsoft Dynamics GP was installed, LeBeau replaced the paper-based systems with automated processes using BizTalk® Server, Microsoft’s business process management server. Using Microsoft BizTalk Server, JSSI developed a service-oriented architecture (SOA), using standard protocols such as XML and Web services to  create a solution that reduced effort, eliminated error, accelerated key processes, and dramatically improved customer, vendor, and employee satisfaction.

JSSI uses BizTalk Server to enable process automation and to streamline its interactions with customers and vendors. To facilitate communication, JSSI created portals using Microsoft .NET technology on top of SQL Server.

The first portal provides customers with an easy, online interface to enter their maintenance data-—the number of flights and hours they’ve flown.

Using BizTalk Server, the customer portal sends that information back to Microsoft Dynamics GP, which collects relevant information from various modules via eConnect adapters, and then generates the invoice. The customer portal provides an enhanced user experience for JSSI customers. Customers have the option of paying invoices online via credit card or electronic check. After the customer enters data, there is no human intervention, reducing the chance for error. When discrepancies do occur, they’re gathered in another Microsoft Dynamics GP module-—Collections-—and can be resolved quickly through the customer portal.

LeBeau estimates that automating this process of dealing with customer exceptions alone accelerated the company’s cash flow by a minimum of U.S.$2 million per month. Using the same technologies, JSSI developed a second portal that serves its globally dispersed sales staff.

This sales portal facilitates the entry of all new customer and contract information. As prospects become customers, LeBeau says, they are required to complete what he calls a “diagnostic interview,” which determines billing rates. Customers sign onto the portal to complete the data about their aircraft. Using MSMQ and BizTalk Server, the data entered into the portal is written to a SQL Server database that contains all the components of a contract. The components are compiled into a Microsoft Office Word document and routed through BizTalk Server to all appropriate departments for approval. Then it is routed back to the customer for signature. Upon receipt of a new signed contract, Microsoft Dynamics GP Receivables is updated with customer information and Microsoft Dynamics GP Contract Administration tables are updated.

The customer and sales portals are the element of JSSI’s Real World SOA solution that utilizes underlying services and processes to drive business benefit.
To continue increasing efficiency and improving customer service, JSSI is also deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Microsoft CRM will track all the information regarding interaction with prospects until they become customers. It will also be the repository of information regarding an aircraft’s maintenance.

“With some engine maintenance projects costing as much as $250,000,” LeBeau says, “it’s important to maintain information on the repair process, such as where the engines are being serviced and repaired, what additional parts are needed and where they come from, how many hours of service, and so on.” JSSI will use BizTalk Server to manage the integration between Microsoft CRM and Microsoft Dynamics GP, ensuring that customer and aircraft data is always in synch and accurate in both systems.

In addition to repair case tracking, JSSI will be using Microsoft CRM to track and manage the prospect-to-customer process, and manage relationships among aircraft owners, operators, finance, and management companies.

Driven by a focused understanding of the business problems they needed to solve, JSSI has taken a real-world approach to creating service-oriented architecture, incrementally delivering solutions to meet its business needs.

Benefits

Saving Time
Since the implementation of the customer portal, the time it takes to create invoices and make payments against them has gone from 10 days to 10 seconds per invoice, according to LeBeau.

This new system means that salespeople can now spend their time closing deals, not following up on pending contracts. John LeBeau Director of Financial Processes and Systems, JSSI

“Since the implementation of the sales portal, where it once might have taken a week or more to create a service contract, it now takes less than a third of that time,” he adds.

With the new automated system, the vendor invoice analysis and payment process has accelerated from 30 days to less than 10.

And because the solution is based on Microsoft technologies, the interface is easy and familiar, allowing JSSI staff to learn the new system quickly.

Saving Money
Their new automated customer collections process expedites cash receipts by at least U.S.$2 million per month. In combination with the new streamlined vendor invoice process, it has expedited cash reconciliation to such a degree that JSSI’s audit fees have been reduced by 25 percent, saving the company $60,000 USD annually.

In addition, JSSI will save money by deploying Microsoft CRM. Prior to its deployment, JSSI was using a competing hosted system. LeBeau estimates that JSSI will save U.S.$80,000 per year by using Microsoft CRM instead of the hosted CRM tool. Additionally, because the entire solution is based on Microsoft products with common technologies, additional integration between Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft CRM can be developed and maintained in house, which greatly reduces costs and adds value to JSSI’s users.

Productivity Gains
The old, paper-based processes were prone to errors and delays. Now, customer data, aircraft specifications and conditions, and financial and top management reviews are entered electronically, and the process workflow is automated and managed through BizTalk Server.

Each person in the workflow process has a dashboard on their desktop, which alerts them when a document is waiting for their review. If there is no action on an item for more than two days, a manager or colleague is notified to ensure that the process is completed in a timely fashion.

LeBeau says the salespeople are elated that they don’t have to chase and push paper anymore: “This new system means that salespeople can now spend their time closing deals, not following up on pending contracts.”

Revenue growth
JSSI has increased revenues by 20 percent during its global expansion, thanks to the end-to-end process integration and workflow efficiency enabled by using BizTalk Server in conjunction with Microsoft Dynamics GP. Double digit growth during global expansion has been fueled by a solution based on integrated Microsoft technologies-—a service oriented architecture that enables current staff to be more efficient, and to spend more time focused on customer service and new business development.

Microsoft BizTalk Server
BizTalk is a business process management (BPM) server that enables companies to automate and optimize business processes. This includes powerful, familiar tools to design, develop, deploy, and manage those processes.

Everything you need for easy installation is included—integrated management tools, support for Web services, and a new business activity monitoring (BAM) portal. In addition, BizTalk Server 2006 includes 23 application and technology adapters in the box for connecting to legacy systems (mainframe and mid-range) and line-of-business applications (SAP, Siebel, PeopleSoft, Oracle, and JD Edwards).

For more information about BizTalk Server, go to:
www.microsoft.com/biztalk

For more information about Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), go to:
www.microsoft.com/soa

Microsoft Dynamics
Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like familiar Microsoft software such as Microsoft Office, which means less of a learning curve for your people, so they can get up and running quickly and focus on what’s most important. And because it is from Microsoft, it easily works with the systems that your company already has implemented.

By automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship, and supply chain processes, Microsoft Dynamics brings together people, processes, and technologies, increasing the productivity and effectiveness of your business, and helping you drive business success.
 
For more information about Microsoft Dynamics, go to:
www.microsoft.com/dynamics

 

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about Jet Support Services, Inc., visit the Web site at:
www.askjssi.com

For more information about LANAC Technology Corp., visit the Web site at:
www.lanactech.com