Professional Services is a significant spend area – in some organizations it approaches 20% of total external spend.  However, in many organizations, Professional Services spend has not been managed as effectively and aggressively as have other categories - savings are being left on the table.
 

As the EMEA market for FAO surpasses even the American appetite, the mid-market, in particular, is coming to the fore

Archstone Consulting believes that changes in the economic environment, the FAO provider market and the technology landscape, have created a congruence of factors that allows mid-market companies (and especially those in Europe) to benefit from FAO as an additional cost reduction and process improvement lever, which was previously only available to larger companies.

Lean manufacturing principles are successfully migrating from plant floors to aerospace and defense (A&D) maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) operations, but they typically fail to address significant sources of waste found in equipment maintenance activities.