Is the technique known as Materials Resource Planning misunderstood? Well, in the world of materials and spare parts management for maintenance support I certainly think that it is. Here is our MRP definition: Materials Resource Planning (MRP) is a management technique that is used to control the resources and activities required […]
Why MRO and Spare Parts Inventory Management Is Different to Other Inventory
Subject Area: MRO and Spare Parts Inventory MRO and spare parts inventory management is different so is it any wonder why you can’t seem to get your MRO and spare parts inventory consistently under control while other inventory types appear to be well managed? Are you challenged by the spare parts management dilemma? People from […]
Supply Chain Management Definition
APICS, The Association for Operations Management uses the following Supply Chain Management definition: ‘design, planning, execution, control, and monitoring of supply chain activities with the objective of creating net value, building a competitive infrastructure, leveraging worldwide logistics, synchronizing supply with demand and measuring performance globally.’ That’s quite a mouthful and many people think supply chain management […]
Spare Parts Inventory Definition
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Excess Spare Parts Inventory: Deal With It
One of the issues that arise with spare parts management in every industry is the management of excess inventory. This is particularly so with engineering spares, used to provide operational support to maintenance and production. With these spare parts there is often a high number of items that are used only infrequently but which may […]
How Squirrel Stores Wreck Your Data
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 […]
How Returns to Store Improves Reliability
Recently I was an attendee at a webinar on the interaction between maintenance reliability and the storeroom. This was a free webinar that while free of cost was also free of content! Unfortunately in this case what content was there was also downright misleading because one of their key points was the assertion that companies can […]
The Two Whys of Spare Parts Inventory Management
The Toyota Production System is seen by many as the origin of Lean Manufacturing – an approach to operations management that eliminates waste and as the name suggests aims to operate as lean as possible. According to Taiicho Ohno, the creator of the system, the approach was built upon a root cause analysis technique called […]
The Truth About Long Supply Chains
Recently I visited a company located near Hobart, in Tasmania. Hobart is the southern most capital city in Australia and possibly the world. One of the interesting things about Hobart (from a spare parts inventory perspective) is that it is a long way away from many industrial centres that supply spare parts. For example, Hobart […]
Repairable Spare Parts Decision Making
Recently I was helping a company develop a suite of spare parts management policies. The process for this involves reviewing the company’s existing policies and then working with their nominated team to improve these or develop new polices, using ‘tried and tested’ generic policies as the starting point. The Repairable Spare Parts Policy is one […]