Customer relationships and aftersales support
Once a part ships, the work that matters is keeping the customer running. I’m the primary point of contact for supply chain escalations and quality defects on my commodities, I lead containment when something goes wrong, I work with dealers on aftermarket solutions, I negotiate remanufacturing of high-voltage generator and motor cores, and I manage over $70 million in annual purchasing spend. This page is about how I build the relationships that protect uptime and reliability, and how I make decisions when they’re tested.
Examples are described in general terms. Supplier names, contract terms, and internal figures stay out; the numbers on this page are ones I’ve already shared publicly or illustrative values.
Where I sit
Aftersales account management and commodity management are the same seat facing different directions. I stand between the customer who needs the product to keep running and the supplier who has to deliver, and I’m the person both sides call when something goes wrong.
As the primary point of contact for supply chain escalations and quality defects, the habits that matter are the ones every aftersales team depends on: one clear owner, commitments written down, every open issue with a next step and a date, and no customer surprised by bad news.
Relationship management
Strong relationships are what make a hard conversation productive instead of adversarial. I’ve built and kept healthy working relationships with clients, vendors, and peers, and I use the same techniques with all three.
Clients
The plants, programs, dealers, and customers who depend on my commodities. They get one name to call, honest status updates, and a straight answer about what I can commit to and when.
Vendors
Suppliers and remanufacturers I hold to high standards and treat as partners. Problems get raised early, with data, and solved together, so the relationship is still strong when the next issue comes.
Peers
Engineering, quality, legal, finance, and logistics. Most escalations are won or lost on how fast those teams move together, so I invest in those relationships before I need them.
The techniques I rely on
- A regular cadence. Scheduled reviews of quality, delivery, and cost, so issues surface in a routine meeting rather than a crisis call.
- Shared facts. Scorecards and data both sides agree on, which keeps conversations about the problem instead of about whose numbers are right.
- Bad news early. Telling a customer about a risk while there’s still time to plan around it builds more trust than any good news does.
- Commitments in writing. Every agreement, action, and date captured and sent out, so there’s no gap between what was said and what was heard.
- Firm on the issue, respectful to the people. I can push hard on a defect or a price without damaging the relationship I’ll need next quarter.
- Close the loop. Every escalation ends with a follow-up confirming the fix worked, which is how the next one gets easier.
Uptime and reliability
Every decision I make is measured against one question: does the customer keep running? In aftersales, a part that arrives late or fails early costs the customer far more than its price, so I work to find reliability and lifecycle risks before they become downtime.
| Risk to uptime | What I do about it | Effect for the customer |
|---|---|---|
| Quality escapes | Watch supplier quality trends and act on a drift before it becomes a defect in the field | Fewer failures reaching the customer, and faster fixes when one does |
| Supply interruptions | Track lead times, capacity, and single-source exposure, and hold buffer stock where the risk justifies it | Parts available when the customer needs them for service or repair |
| Lifecycle and obsolescence | Monitor end-of-life and change notices, and plan last-time buys or qualified alternates ahead of time | Products stay supportable for their full service life |
| Remanufactured part performance | Hold remanufactured high-voltage generator and motor cores to written test and acceptance criteria, and track how they perform after they return to service | Service parts that perform like the original |
| Unannounced changes | Require advance notice of process, site, or sub-supplier changes, with time to validate | No surprise reliability problems from a change nobody reviewed |
Serviceability in practice: IndyGo hybrid bus battery packs
I led the service strategy for the battery packs on IndyGo’s hybrid buses in Indianapolis. A transit bus that’s out of service is a route that doesn’t run, so the strategy centered on serviceability: how packs are diagnosed, serviced, and returned to the road with as little time off the street as possible. It’s the same question an aftersales team asks about any critical asset: when it needs attention, how fast can we get it back to work?
My engineering background helps here: worst-case analysis, PFMEA, DFMEA, and hands-on hardware debugging mean I can follow a reliability problem to its source and judge whether a proposed fix will actually hold.
Escalations and customer containment
I serve as the primary escalation point for decision making when a supply chain or quality issue threatens a customer. The order is always the same: protect the customer first with containment, find the cause second, settle the cost last.
- Take ownership and say soTell the customer and every affected team who is driving the issue, what is known, and when the next update is coming. Silence is what turns a problem into an escalation.
- Put customer containment actions in place: quarantine suspect stock, sort and inspect, rework, pull forward safety stock, or approve a temporary alternate so the customer stays up and running
- Get the facts: part numbers, lots, dates, failure data, and returned parts in hand before anyone argues about cause
- Work the root cause of the quality defect with the supplier and our quality and engineering teams, using PFMEA and DFMEA to find where the process let it through
- Agree on corrective action with dates, and verify it in the parts that arrive, not just in the paperwork
- Release containment only when the data says the fix works, and tell the customer exactly what changed
- Settle the commercial side: cost recovery, terms, and any change to the agreement, with legal involved where the contract is in question
- Close it out: update the FMEA, share lessons learned, and adjust how that supplier is reviewed so the same defect doesn’t come back
Being the escalation point means making the call
Escalations stall when nobody will decide. As the primary escalation point, I decide which containment action, which source, and what ships. When a decision sits above my authority, I bring leadership the options, the cost and risk of each, and a recommendation, so the answer comes back in hours instead of days.
Dealers and aftermarket solutions
Dealers are where the customer relationship lives day to day. I work with them on aftermarket solutions that keep customers’ equipment running and compliant as emissions regulations change.
Emissions compliance
When regulations tighten, equipment already in the field still has to meet them. I work with dealers on aftermarket solutions that keep customer fleets compliant without taking them out of service longer than necessary.
Parts and remanufacturing
I lead remanufacturing negotiations for high-voltage electric generator and motor cores. Those agreements, along with supply agreements, are what dealers depend on to service customers. Clear quality standards, core returns, and lead times on my side mean fewer surprises on theirs.
Feedback from the field
Dealers see failures and service patterns before anyone else. I treat that as early warning, bringing it back to suppliers, quality, and engineering so lifecycle risks get addressed before they reach more customers.
Managing $70M+ in annual spend
I manage over $70 million in annual purchasing spend. Owning that much spend means knowing where every dollar sits: in the piece price, in the tooling, or in the engineering behind it. Getting those categories right is what lets me give a customer or a leader a clear answer about cost.
| Cost category | What it is | How I manage it |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase price variance (PPV) | The gap between the price actually paid and the standard cost in the budget, multiplied by volume | Track it by part and supplier, explain every unfavorable variance, and act on the drivers: material indexes, tariffs, or terms that need renegotiating |
| Capital expenditure tooling | Molds, dies, fixtures, and test equipment bought as company assets, capitalized and depreciated over their life | Confirm ownership and tagging at the supplier, protect the right to move tooling, and plan its life against program volume |
| Non-recurring engineering (NRE) | One-time engineering effort such as design, validation, and testing, typically expensed rather than capitalized | Separate it from tooling and piece price in every quote, so it’s paid once, budgeted correctly, and never hidden in the part cost |
| Amortized versus up-front | Whether tooling or NRE is paid directly or spread into the piece price | Choose deliberately: amortizing helps cash flow now but raises piece price and can cost more if volumes change |
Purchase price variance check
- Variance per unit
- $0.85
- Total PPV
- $34,000
- Variance to standard
- 4.6%
Unfavorable: paying $34,000 over standard on this part.
Illustrative values only.
Negotiation and strategic pricing
A good agreement is one both sides can still keep a year later. These are the terms I spend the most time on, and why each one matters to the customer and the aftersales team that depend on the part long after it ships.
| Term | What I push for | Why it matters downstream |
|---|---|---|
| Quality standard | Acceptance criteria and test methods written into the agreement, including for remanufactured parts | A reman part that isn’t held to a clear standard comes back as a field failure |
| Core returns and credit | A simple return process, clear core condition rules for high-voltage generator and motor cores, and credit timing everyone understands | Confusing core terms turn into disputes that slow down every future order |
| Warranty and failure handling | Who investigates, who pays, and how fast parts and data move when something fails | Fast, agreed failure handling is what keeps a quality issue from becoming a downtime issue |
| Lead time and buffer | Committed lead times, safety stock where the risk justifies it, and early warning on capacity | Parts that arrive on time are the cheapest reliability improvement there is |
| Pricing and cost changes | Transparent pricing, agreed triggers for adjustments, and a defined path for tariff and material cost changes | Surprise cost changes erode trust on both sides faster than any quality issue |
| Change notification | Advance notice of process, site, or sub-supplier changes, with time to validate | Unannounced changes are a frequent root cause behind sudden quality escapes |
Strategic pricing on both sides
Pricing isn’t only a supplier conversation. I discuss strategic pricing with suppliers on the cost side and with customers on the revenue side, so what we pay and what we charge stay aligned. Holding both conversations together is what protects margin and keeps revenue targets on track, especially when tariffs, material costs, or remanufacturing terms move.
With suppliers
Transparent cost breakdowns, agreed triggers for price changes, and remanufacturing terms that keep cost predictable.
With customers
Pricing that reflects real cost and value, explained clearly, so changes are understood rather than resented.
Against targets
Every pricing decision checked against margin and revenue targets before it’s agreed, not after the quarter closes.
How I go into a negotiation
Know the data better than the other side, know what we can give on before the meeting starts, and be honest about what we need. I learned that sitting on the procurement side at North American Lighting, where strategic sourcing and supplier negotiation delivered $1.2M in cost avoidance, and it’s held true at Allison.
Tariff exposure and recovery
I manage IEEPA tariff impacts and reimbursement recovery: tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act landed on parts already under contract, so I track exposure by part and supplier, pursue reimbursement where it applies, and bring leadership a clear recommendation.
The first question when a new tariff lands is how much it costs. The second is who carries it and how much of it can be recovered. This is the simple version of the math I start from, before supplier terms, timing, and the details of each claim come in.
Tariff exposure estimator
- Duty per unit
- $10.50
- Annual exposure
- $262,500
- Recoverable
- $157,500
- Net cost
- $105,000
Net cost adds 10.0% to this part’s annual spend.
Illustrative values only. Real recovery depends on the legal basis for the tariff, the contract terms with each supplier, and the documentation behind each entry.
Certification and global footprint
A product can only serve customers in markets where it’s certified. I’ve helped grow Allison’s global footprint by securing certification with regulatory bodies, including European vehicle certification authorities and the Indian government.
Regulators
I led a military product certification strategy across the US, India, Sweden, and Italy, and prepared Conformity of Production submittals for the EU. Each regulator asks the same question in a different way, and the job is answering it clearly the first time.
Mission-critical applications
I led electronics reliability validation for defense and mission-critical applications, including HEMP, gamma radiation, and total-dose survivability, where failure isn’t an option and the evidence has to hold up to scrutiny.
Leadership
I turn technical, regulatory, and certification findings into executive briefings that guide product investment, including the case for Allison’s Next Gen Transmission Controller and the $100K in-house EMC lab I pitched and built.
Get in touch
If you need someone who can own the customer relationship after delivery, follow the engineering, and stay with an issue until the customer is running again, I’d like to hear from you.