Recently I wrote about the two major storeroom activities that prevent your issues data from accurately representing actual usage.
The first of these was the returns-to-store process and you will recall that, despite the impact on your data, if managed well this process can actually help you improve your reliability.
As indicated last time, today I am addressing what I call squirrel stores.
A squirrel store is that unofficial storage of spare parts that people keep in the workshop or crib and not in the storeroom.
Usually, the driver for keeping squirrel stores is a belief that this will short-cut supply time or ‘guarantee’ supply.
While both worthy goals, at best the benefit is marginal and at its worst squirrel stores result in wasted additional expenditure and reduced reliability.
Hardly, the original intent! Let me explain this with an example.
At this plant they used a part called a rupture disc and a specific type of rupture disc was set up as a new stores item.
One of the maintenance team, knowing that a shutdown was coming up, was concerned that he would not have enough rupture discs for his work and so requisitioned all the stock on hand – 6 items – because he wanted to ‘guarantee’ his supply.
These particular discs have a three month lead time and the storeroom team were concerned that they were suddenly out of stock on an item that they had only just created.
To ensure ongoing supply they doubled the next order and purchased 12.
After these arrived the excess stock came to the attention of the Supervisor who decided to investigate. It turned out that the maintenance guy had used 1 of his supply of discs in the shutdown and still had 5 of the 6 items in his locker. He was holding onto them ‘just in case’.
Obviously there is a range of ‘sins’ in this example but one thing is clear.
The company data showed the purchase and then issue of 6 items, with the top-up purchase of another 12 – seemingly defensible. The reality was that they had purchased 18 items and used just 1 – a completely unjustified result.
So, if you are relying on issues data to make your maintenance or stocking decisions make sure that you understand the real story, not just what the data says, because squirrel stores will wreck your data.
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Posted by: Phillip Slater