Identifying Critical Spare Parts: One of the key causes of incorrect critical spare parts assessment is the assumption that just because a part is critical for the equipment that it is also to be classified as a critical spare part for the storeroom.
In this short video Phillip Slater explains why this is a problem.
Identifying Critical Spare Parts
Video Transcript
Hi, my name is Phillip Slater, and for the next couple of minutes I’d just like to give you something to think about.
Critical machine parts are not the same as critical spare parts.
One of the key causes of incorrect criticality assessment is the assumption that just because a part is critical for the equipment that it is also to be classified as a critical part for the storeroom.
Now, this results in sometimes holding too many of the parts that aren’t really required to be held and often results in not holding enough of the parts that should be held.
So, if we can’t use machine criticality as a guidance for spare parts critically what should we do?
The key to understanding criticality is to understand failure mode and that is against what failure are you holding the spare part in your inventory.
So, the example I use of this most often is the spare tire that everybody holds in the trunk of their car.
We all hold the spare tire because the failure mode for a tire that we’re trying to protect against is catastrophic puncture that makes the tire, that’s in use, inoperable.
So hence we hold the spare because we have zero notice of impending failure.
However, cars also require brake pads in order to operate. Now brake pads are inspectable. They rarely fail catastrophically. They wear out. And because of that we don’t carry spare brake pads.
See this little piece of logic helps us understand that if we understand the failure mode, then we can determine the criticality with regards to a spare parts inventory holding.
It’s quite different to the machine criticality.
That’s something to think about.
My name is Phillip Slater.
Posted by: Phillip Slater