Subject Area: Spare Parts Knowledge
Spare parts management is a decision-heavy environment.
What should we stock?
How many should we hold?
Which parts are truly critical?
How do we reduce excess without increasing risk?
How do we build systems, processes, and capability that produce better decisions every day?
These are not occasional questions. In most asset-intensive businesses, they are asked daily, revisited frequently, and complicated by the sheer number of items involved.
This is not a “set and forget” environment.
At the same time, the rapid growth of AI applications has created the expectation that answers should be instant, direct, and easy to access. That expectation is understandable. But there is a problem.
Most AI tools still rely heavily on standard supply chain and inventory management thinking. And when that thinking is applied directly to spare parts inventory, it often leads people down the wrong path.
Spare parts are different.
The demand patterns are different.
The consequences of shortage are different.
The relationship between stockholding, risk, and operational performance is different.
And the decisions required are different.
So, the answer is not simply “do more training”.
There needs to be a shift in how spare parts knowledge is access and delivered.
We are now making the biggest rethink and restructure of SparePartsKnowHow.com in 15 years.
The purpose is simple: to better reflect how people actually use our content.
Historically, much of our expertise has been presented through courses. That made sense at the time, and structured training will remain part of what we do.
But many people do not arrive with a neat training need.
They arrive with a decision to make.
A problem to solve.
A policy to improve.
A system weakness to fix.
A team that needs a common language.
Or a specific question about criticality, ROP, ROQ, obsolescence, excess stock, or operational control.
So, we are moving away from presenting SparePartsKnowHow.com primarily as a set of courses and toward presenting it as a structured spare parts decision support platform.
At the centre of this shift is the Spare Parts Decision Framework.
This framework recognizes that spare parts management is not just a collection of topics. It is a connected set of decisions. The aim is to help people understand the decisions they need to make, the logic behind those decisions, and the practical methods available to support them.
The content is not being discarded.
Instead, it is being reorganized so users can access it according to their need, including:
- understanding the foundations of spare parts inventory management
- making better stockholding and criticality decisions
- improving operational control
- developing capability in specific focus areas
- accessing practical tools, templates, frameworks, and deeper practitioner support
We are adopting a structured pathway that provides a clearer progression from foundational understanding through to operational capability and practitioner-level decision support.
You will not need to start at the beginning if that is not where your need sits.
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New to spare parts inventory management? Start with the foundations and build a clear understanding of how spare parts really work.
Trying to improve operational performance? Go directly to the focus areas that address the problem you are trying to solve.
Leading broader inventory improvement? Access deeper tools, frameworks, and reference materials designed for more advanced decision-making.
In line with this pathway, we are also restructuring our current courses to remove duplication and create a clearer escalation of skills and capability.
We already provide practical tools such as the Criticality Assessment Tool and the Obsolescence Risk Calculator.
These will be joined by additional tools, including:
- a Reorder Point calculator
- a Reorder Quantity calculator
- a Last-Time-Buy calculator
- an Operational Capability Assessment Tool
The Operational Capability Assessment Tool will help users assess the strengths and weaknesses of their current spare parts management systems, processes, and outcomes.
Our Open Archive is also being formalized. It will remain open, with no email address or registration required.
Not everything is changing.
We will continue to focus specifically on MRO and asset-intensive industries.
We will continue to take a practical, grounded, non-theoretical approach.
We will continue to recognize that spare parts inventory management requires different thinking from general inventory management.
And certificates will still be available. These will provide evidence of verified capability and will be linked to defined competencies.
Existing access rights will also be respected. Anyone who has already signed up for one of our current offerings will continue to have access to what they signed up for.
We have already started making the necessary changes to the website, but the restructure is not yet complete.
A change of this size requires significant behind-the-scenes work. Content needs to be reorganized, pathways need to be clarified, and tools need to be tested before release.
For that reason, we have paused new access during this transition period.
The site remains open, and public access to the Open Archive is still available.
As new access options are released, we will make further announcements.
We believe this shift in spare parts knowledge access will make SparePartsKnowHow.com more useful, more practical, and better aligned with the way people make spare parts inventory decisions in the real world.
It is often said that half the battle is knowing which questions to ask.
The other half is knowing where to find the right answers.
That is the shift we are making.
Posted by: Phillip Slater