Spares Management

Spares Management Overview

Unavailability of the right parts may have a serious, negative impact on equipment availability, due to increased downtime, and resource efficiency due to schedule interruptions.

Managing spare parts can seem to be a daunting task, which can be eased by using a computer software package (most CMMSs have an inventory management module); this can be used to record all spare parts, their locations, purchase and usage. In this way, technicians know exactly what parts they'll need for a repair or preventive maintenance task and where those parts are.

Spares Management Approach

Maintaining optimal spares requires tracking usage data and inventory costs, order history and issues against work orders.

Effective spares management depends on a small number of key steps:

• Defining common standard to describe each item

• Deciding the stock policies (stock/no stock)

• Setting stock levels and reorder quantities

• Managing the issue and return of parts

Historically, few companies had these steps in place; hence there is generally an overstocking situation with duplicate, obsolete and redundant items. MCP can provide a complete spares and inventory improvement programme which covers:    

• Data cleansing and parts standardisation

• Data mining, standardisation, validation and enrichment

• Parts and materials classification

• Spare parts evaluation/inventory listings

• Stock replenishment policies - min/max stocking levels

• Building Bills of Materials (BOM) for assets

• Warehouse design and management processes development

• Spare parts analysis

• De-duplication cleansing of stock lists

• Disposal of excess stock inventory

• Spares Training

Spares Management Benefits

We support our clients to employ appropriate stores management techniques to optimise availability versus costs.

The benefits include:

• Improved demand forecasting to allow for optimised inventories

• Optimised target inventories (holding cost vs. ordering cost vs. service)

• Tactical stock location(s) and picking strategies

• Optimised stores design, layout, materials handling practices and workflows

• Stores management system requirements/specifications

• Safety stock requirements to meet specified service targets

• Stores automation and materials handling systems

• Dynamic inventory targets reflecting varying demand patterns

• ‘Cost to serve’ modelling to support the optimised solution