The newly-branded company provides single parts point-of-purchase for the NFI Group’s expansive family of transit and coach vehicles.
After 18 months of planning, the MCI parts organization completed its integration into NFI Parts in November 2018, creating a more comprehensive parts offering and larger distribution network to improve customer service.
Now, NFI Parts conducts business for both New Flyer and MCI parts customers.
“All parts purchases for the NFI Group family of brands will now flow through one parts company,” said Brian Dewsnup, NFI Parts President. “Customers don’t have to manage multiple phone numbers, email addresses, purchase orders, transactions or checks.” According to Dewsnup, partsstore.mcicoach.com remains the online home of all MCI Parts.
By the unification, NFI Parts now meets customer’s needs with 15 warehouse locations throughout North America, along with three administrative hubs in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Delaware, Ohio; and Louisville, Kentucky.
Meeting customer needs
Dewsnup said one of the goals of NFI Parts is to conduct business in the method that works best for a given customer, whether that’s in-person, telephone, fax, email or on the web. “We want to make it easy for our customers,” Dewsnup said.
“We are in a unique position to support our customers,” he said. “Smaller, local distributors often don’t have online ordering capability nor do they have our breadth of stock. Many of our customers want to do business online, but they also want the flexibility of picking up the phone and talking to someone that knows what they’re doing.” To that end, the company will continue to expand parts offerings for purchase online in 2019, and offer support with expert staff at its call center.
Much of the work completed so far has been integrating the business processes of two industry leaders – New Flyer Parts in the transit bus industry, and MCI Parts in the motorcoach industry. The integration sets the foundation for future operational improvements and growth.
Supply Chain Solutions
In today’s world, NFI Parts™ customers are looking for solutions that help to eliminate costly steps in the parts purchasing and inventory management processes. These solutions range from price lists and fill rate commitments, to daily delivery from dedicated stock. “We believe that customers are looking for unique solutions to their parts supply and NFI Parts has demonstrated the ability to create and support those solutions,” said Dewsnup.
Specific to MCI, there are now nine Regional Parts Representatives in the field supporting MCI coaches with two new team members added in Canada. And all MCI Service Center locations include NFI Parts supply with parts pick up availability for local customers.
Training
Customer training remains a major focus for NFI Parts, thanks to the award winning, ASE accredited, MCI Academy and its online Learning Management System (LMS).
MCI debuted the LMS (Learning Management System) in 2015, and it is now the foundation for the MCI Academy to combine all training platforms into a progressive curriculum leading to certificates
and diplomas.
Currently, more than 4,000 customer users select from more than 400 courses in the MCI Academy LMS library on major coach components and systems. As students, they typically schedule their own time to study online in their shops. LMS maintains an account and transcript for each student and documents all training activity. MCI operators can then track each employee through customized reports.
MCI Academy currently includes systems qualifications programs, certificate programs, diploma programs, continuing education programs, and on-site training. Dewsnup said the course offering will continue expanding in the years to come.
Focusing on 2019
“Within NFI Group, we have industry leading products with the MCI J series, D Series and New Flyer Xcelsior models,” he said. “Our team supports these vehicles with the best service, support, parts and training. For us at NFI Parts that means building upon the successes of New Flyer Parts and MCI Parts and setting new industry standards for product availability, customer service, training, and publications. We’re aligning with our customers, getting to know them even better. As we better understand their operations, we will better know how to support their success.”