Overview

Benjamin Franklin says: A penny saved is a penny earned

Outsourcing for Americans and the West means sending manufacturing jobs to China and technology jobs to India in order to save money. Programming in India and manufacturing in China is cheaper for now. However, the costs of both locations have been increasing faster than the labors rates in the West. For the maintenance department, outsourcing is hiring outside contractors to perform some or all of the maintenance needed.

In Lean Maintenance, outsourcing is neither good nor bad. The projects we will be developing can be carried out by contractors as well as by in-house labor. One advantage of in-house labor for Lean Projects is that the motivational level often is higher. There are situations where contractors hold the clear advantage. In other situations the in-house departments have a clear advantage.

Toward the end of the 1990s there was a popular business concept that stated that companies should focus on their core competencies and outsource the rest. Companies outsourced their IT departments, their human resources, and almost everything else. Some major hardware vendors don't make anything, and have no production facilities themselves. Everything is outsourced.

If maintenance expertise is not determined to be essential for success, just call a contractor. Most of the US military bases are maintained by contractors. The urge to outsource maintenance can be driven by a belief that it will save money, but usually it is driven by inadequate service levels, or the inability of the...