The management of rotable items and repairable spare parts is different to the management of other inventory items and proper control requires greater cooperation between maintenance and stores/inventory management. The successful management of these items is far more active than other spare parts as maintenance and store/inventory personnel must work together to ensure […]
How Storeroom Security Puts Reliability at Risk
Many companies are fully aware of the importance of maintaining security around their spare parts inventories. They secure their spares in lock-up areas, ensure staff are on hand to manage the high levels of spares requests during the day shift period of highest maintenance activity, and provide a rock solid approach for identifying storeroom entrants […]
Procurement Savings: 33% by Removing One Artificial Constraint
Subject Area: Procurement Savings One of the main short comings that I see in the approach to indirect materials and spare parts management procurement is that many people don’t think past the key decision as to whether to stock or not to stock an item. After they reach the decision to acquire a spare part […]
Are the Benefits From Inventory Savings Real?
Last month I wrote about the cost of delaying action when improvement opportunities are identified. My point was that many people only consider the accrual of benefits AFTER they have taken action and not the opportunity cost of not taking or delaying action (e.g. if I can be $100 better off by doing X then […]
Stock Turn Measurement – Four Common Problems
This 2-Minute Tutorial explains the calculation of stock turns and presents 4 common problems with both calculation and interpreting the stock turn ratio. Click here for information on our Practitioner Playbook. Posted by: Phillip Slater
Why You MUST Also Review Critical Spare Parts
Maintenance and reliability engineers will happily (well, not happily) undertake a review of spare parts that are not classified as critical, yet they will shy away from reviewing items that are classified as critical spare parts. Why? Why should you choose to avoid reviewing spare parts that are classified as critical? […]
Spare Parts Inventory is Like a Loan From the Bank
What would you do if you had the chance to save $2M per year with no capital expense and a payback period measured in weeks? Nothing? Have you ever noticed how much time we all spend considering the costs of taking action and how little time we spend considering the cost of inaction? That is, […]
Eliminating Spare Parts Stock Outs
One of the main fears of most reliability and maintenance engineers is that, at the time of actual need, the required spare part will not be available. This is commonly referred to as a stock out. Thus the goal of many reliability and maintenance engineers is to eliminate spare parts stock outs and remove this […]
18 Tips for a More Efficient and Effective Stock Take
A stock take can be an administrative nightmare or they can be efficient and effective. It all depends on how they are set up and organized. There are three key steps for an efficient stock take and they must each be given an appropriate degree of attention. For each of these […]
Some Cold, Hard Facts About Stock Takes
One of the key functions that must be carried out with all inventory management is a periodic reconciliation between actual stock holdings and the holdings according to the accounting system. This reconciliation is a requirement of financial management and accounting standards and the primary intent is to ensure that the organization […]