Subject Area: Spare Parts Management Habits
Do you really need to think big to achieve your goals in spare parts management?
Can you achieve your goals through incremental, yet powerful, change?
In this post I am going to answer these two questions by reviewing some more of the insight from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear.
While the book is about individual goals and behavior, I am putting it into the context of your spare parts management habits.
Here are five key lessons.
1. “Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits.”
With spare parts management your inventory levels and availability outcomes are what they are because of your past stocking decisions and current processes. They are, in effect, a lagging indicator of these two factors.
The only way to achieve different outcomes is to change the approach to stocking decisions and improve your processes. Without that change you are just hoping and not managing.
Which brings us to #2.
2. “You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.”
This is an extension of #1. It really doesn’t matter what goals you set if your systems and process cannot support those goals. It is pretty simple when you say it out loud.
If you are frustrated that you cannot sustainably achieve your goals, start looking at what you are doing that does not support the desired outcomes.
For example, if your spare parts stock decision making uses inappropriate tools and techniques (such as those developed for manufacturing, retail, or wholesale inventory) then you will not achieve your goals
3. “Just as atoms are the building blocks of molecules, atomic habits are the building blocks of remarkable results.”
The book is titled Atomic Habits because Clear argues that personal success is all about the little things and that these small actions build into remarkable results.
It is the same with spare parts management. Simple, seemingly small changes can produce remarkable results. Things like training your team in the specifics of spare parts management is a small change in focus but it drives big results.
4. “It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement.”
OK, so the idea of continuous improvement has been around forever. Yet, people seem to forget the power of compounding in achieving goals.
Too often people come to me looking for what I describe as a ‘silver bullet’ – a single solution that will solve all their spare parts management problems.
This does not exist.
The path to success is paved with small improvements targeted at specific issues. These build to create a robust system that will continue to deliver the results you want.
5. “You don’t have to be the victim of your environment. You can also be the architect of it.”
For many companies a management approach was established in the past and nobody has worked to change it since. It is like they are controlled by their environment and don’t realize that they can change this.
In my book Spare Parts Inventory Management, I wrote that management systems either are designed, or they evolve randomly. In research for that book, I identified that 75% of responding companies do not have a specific spare parts stocking policy to guide decision making on whether or not to stock an item! No wonder they have too much inventory. (This is a simple change that can have a huge impact.)
These companies are victims of their environment. They take a ‘set and forget’ approach to spare parts management and allow the existing system to dictate their outcomes. Yet they could easily change this and drive the goals they desire.
So, to answer my initial questions.
Do you really need to think big to achieve your goals in spare parts management?
No, but you do need to think differently.
Can you achieve your goals through incremental, yet powerful, change?
Yes, but you need to know what to change and how to change it.
The reality is this: Continued use of inappropriate the tools and techniques means you will continue to experience excess inventory, higher costs, parts shortages, and ongoing uncertainty.
By applying the right techniques, you can safely and sustainably reduce your inventory, reduce costs, minimize risk, and achieve more certainty.
It all about adopting the right spare parts management habits.
Posted by Phillip Slater