Making the right decision about whether to hold a spare part in inventory starts with understanding its criticality.
This simple assessment tool guides you step-by-step through a logic-based process to help you determine the criticality of a specific part.
It’s fast, easy, and designed to support confident decision-making.
How to Use the Spare Part Criticality Assessment Tool
This interactive spare parts criticality assessment tool helps you assess whether a specific spare part is critical to your operations and should be held in inventory.
Follow these steps:
- Start with what you know.
- Assess predictability.
- Evaluate impact.
- Consider timing.
- Review the recommendation.
Answer whether you understand the most likely failure modes of the part. If not, the tool will advise you to investigate further before continuing.
If you know the failure modes, the tool will guide you to consider how predictable those failures are.
For unpredictable failures, assess the likely impact on safety, operations, the environment, or quality.
If failures are predictable, you’ll be asked to estimate:
The time between detection and actual failure
The lead time to source a replacement part
The tool will then provide guidance based on your responses to help inform your stocking decision.
This tool is for guidance only. It’s designed to prompt critical thinking and support more consistent decision-making—not to replace engineering or reliability expertise.
Exclusively Available as Part of the Practitioner Toolkit
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About This Tool
This spare part criticality assessment is based on practical, real-world considerations including failure modes, predictability, operational impact, and lead times.
The tool follows the decision logic that is taught in our training courses.
While it does not replace engineering judgment or detailed reliability analysis, it offers a structured way to think about stocking decisions. Use it as a guide—especially when you need a starting point for discussion or analysis.
You can revisit and re-run this tool for multiple parts or use it during team workshops or planning sessions.
Created by Phillip Slater