Home / Blog

Ariel parts lead time in Pakistan: planning around 12 weeks

The single biggest cause of a slipped maintenance window is not the work. It is waiting for parts that were ordered too late.

Why twelve weeks is the number that matters

Every quotation GenCom issues for Ariel compressor parts carries the same clause: orders are subject to the OEM standard lead time of around twelve weeks, subject to stock availability. That is not a GenCom limitation. It is how a made to order compressor part reaches Pakistan from Mount Vernon, Ohio.

Twelve weeks is three months. A preventive maintenance window planned for March needs its parts ordered in December. In practice, most requests reach us far later than that, usually when the maintenance schedule is already fixed and cannot move.

Three things are competing:

  • The plant's maintenance window, which is set by production, not by procurement
  • The OEM build and despatch time, which is fixed
  • Import, customs clearance and inland delivery inside Pakistan

Order against the window, not against the failure

Operators who never miss a window do one thing differently: they issue the enquiry against the maintenance date, not against the moment the part is needed. If your overhaul is in the second quarter, the parts enquiry belongs in the previous quarter.

A useful habit is to send the maintenance calendar rather than a parts list. Tell us the machine, the scope and the week, and the parts list can be built backwards from that. It also lets us tell you which items are already in Pakistan and which have to be ordered.

What to send with an enquiry:

  • The compressor frame and, if you have it, the serial number
  • The scope: valves only, a top end, or a full overhaul
  • The week the machine is coming down
  • Whether the site can accept a partial shipment to protect the critical path

You do not need part numbers. Describing the machine and the job is enough for our team to identify the correct Genuine parts.

How the wait actually gets shorter

Two things shorten a twelve week lead time, and neither is negotiation with the factory.

The first is stock held inside Pakistan. GenCom catalogues over 1,700 Ariel and FW Murphy line items and holds moving items locally. If the part you need is on the shelf, the factory lead time stops being relevant.

The second is splitting the shipment. On a large overhaul package, the critical path items can be air freighted first while the balance follows. On one Engro Daharki order we shipped in two tranches for exactly that reason, so the plant had its valves before the full set was ready.

What that looks like in practice: on a recent order for main bearings for an Ariel JGR frame, the quotation carried the standard twelve week note, we quoted four weeks, and the parts were signed for at the field seventeen days after the order. The maintenance window held its original date.

None of that works if the enquiry arrives the week the machine comes down. It works when the enquiry arrives with the schedule.

Tell us your maintenance window

Send the dates and the machine. We will tell you what is on the shelf and what has to be ordered.