Spare Parts Management Foundations for Teams

Topic Area: Spare Parts Management Foundations for Teams
 

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Spare parts management is a team activity.
Maintenance creates demand.
Stores control accuracy.
Procurement manages supply.
Engineering influences standardization.
Finance sees the inventory value.
Operations feel the impact when parts are not available.
Planning tries to tie it all together.

When each group sees spare parts differently, decisions become inconsistent. The result is often excess inventory, poor availability, slow-moving stock, expediting, frustration, and finger-pointing.

Foundations for Teams gives your people a shared understanding of how spare parts management works and why spare parts require different decisions from general inventory.

It is built around the Foundations Playbook content, but the outcome is team alignment.
 

 

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Foundations for Teams sits at the start of the capability pathway, but it is designed for organizational alignment rather than individual learning alone.

It helps create a common decision language across the people who influence spare parts outcomes.

The Spare PartsKnowHow Capability Framework
Spare parts management capability develops in stages.

Foundations Playbook: builds the core understanding.
Operations Playbook: develops practical management capability.
Practitioner Playbook: provides deeper tools, templates, and decision support.
Foundations for Teams: creates shared understanding across the people who influence spare parts outcomes.

Each Playbook is designed to help you make better spare parts decisions, in alignment with our Spare Parts Decision Framework.

The right starting point depends on your current capability and your goal.

Foundations for Teams creates the common knowledge base needed before improvement work begins.
 

 

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Foundations for Teams is for organisations that want a shared understanding of spare parts management across functions.

It is suitable when:

• Different groups influence spare parts outcomes
• People are making inconsistent decisions
• The organization wants to improve inventory performance
• Maintenance, stores, procurement, and finance are not fully aligned
• New processes or policies are being introduced
• The team needs a common language before moving into improvement work
• Spare parts decisions are being made through habit, emotion, or local preference

This is not team-building in the generic sense.

It is practical spare parts training designed to improve alignment around real inventory decisions.
 

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Your team will learn the core principles of spare parts management and why spare parts require different thinking.

The training helps participants understand:

• Why spare parts require different thinking from general inventory
• How to identify and manage critical spare parts
• How to calculate the Re-Order Point and Re-Order Quantity
• The best ways to prevent and manage obsolete inventory
• Approaches to managing the ‘First Time Buy’ and capital spares
• How maintenance, procurement, stores, engineering, and finance all influence spare parts outcomes
• What constitutes Best Practice with MRO and spare parts inventory management
• Why “rules of thumb” often create long-term inventory problems
• How to begin thinking in terms of structured decisions rather than isolated transactions

The goal is shared understanding, not just individual completion.
 

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Foundations for Teams helps address problems such as:

• Different departments blaming each other for spare parts issues
• Maintenance requesting more stock without a structured decision process
• Procurement focusing only on purchase cost or supplier response
• Stores being blamed for issues caused by poor decisions upstream
• Finance seeing inventory value without understanding operational risk
• Inconsistent stocking decisions across sites, teams, or individuals
• Resistance to new policies or inventory improvement initiatives
• People using different language for the same problem
• Improvement projects losing momentum because the team does not share the same starting point

When everyone understands the basics, improvement becomes easier.
 

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This is an intensive, instructor led, 100% online, group or team program that teaches participants the fundamentals of spare parts inventory management.

Live Online Sessions:

• The course involves 5 interactive live online sessions over 5 consecutive weeks.
• The course starts with a team ‘onboarding’ orientation session
• Then there is a weekly, 90-minute, live on-line session with the course facilitator, Phillip Slater.

Weekly Individual Study:

• Each weekly module consists of reading, videos, and exercises. The participants review this content before each online session.
• Expected ‘homework’ time averages at approximately 60-90 minutes per week.
• The online sessions then act as tutorials to clarify understanding and answer questions.

Online Group Discussion

• The participants can engage in a discussion with other participants, and they can ask questions of the course facilitator.
• This enables them to reach a common understanding of the issues and solutions.

Extensive Workbook:

• There is a 27-page workbook to guide your team through the program, this includes all the exercises.
• The workbook also helps participants develop a personal action plan for execution in your business.

Assessment

• Team members that attend all four sessions will receive a certificate acknowledging their participation.
• They also have the opportunity to complete our ‘Foundations’ quiz and receive a ‘Capability Certificate’ acknowledging their skill development

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Spare parts management is a ‘team sport’.

That is, it takes a team of people to produce effective results in terms of stock holding levels, availability, accuracy, and cost.

You can either assist them in working together or force them to work it out on their own.”

 

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If you need access for a larger group, multiple sites, or a company-wide program, contact us to discuss team or enterprise options.
 

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Your investment in Foundations for Teams depends on the number of participants and the preferred delivery format.

For small groups, standard team access may be suitable.

For larger groups, multiple sites, or facilitated programs, we can discuss the best structure.
 

 

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Is this the same as the individual Foundations Level?
It uses the same core Foundations content, but the purpose is different. The individual level builds personal understanding. Foundations for Teams builds shared understanding across the people who influence spare parts outcomes.

Who should be included?
Include the people who influence spare parts decisions or outcomes. This may include maintenance, stores, procurement, planning, reliability, engineering, supply chain, and finance.

Is this suitable before an improvement project?
Yes. It is an ideal first step before introducing new policies, reviewing inventory, improving critical spares, or changing spare parts processes.

Can this be delivered for multiple sites?
Yes. It is perfect for multiple sites because it is delivered online.

Alternatively, for multiple sites or larger groups, a tailored team or enterprise option may be more suitable.

Can selected people continue to Operations or Practitioner access?
Yes. A practical pathway is to train the broader team through Foundations for Teams, then provide Operations or Practitioner access to the people responsible for deeper improvement work.
 

 
 

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This program is facilitated by: Phillip Slater