Each section of our Spare Parts Management Resources Library – we call it the Know-How Center – includes a selection of videos, white papers, articles, podcasts, and presentations relating to that subject area.
To make it easy to navigate, the Know-How Center is segmented according to the spare parts management life cycle, as shown in the diagram below.
Please note: Access to our Spare Parts Management Resources Library is restricted to those people who have taken the Pro or Elite Teams membership option.
This section of the spare parts management resources library provides access to resources to help guide the activity and decision making throughout the life cycle of the spare parts held in inventory.
Go to the Spare Parts Management System section >>>
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It is vital that the people engaged in establishing your system understand spare parts management, not just supply chain or generic inventory management.
The other key considerations in the phase are: understanding the financial implications, developing polices and processes that provide the framework for action, and establishing robust parts identification systems.
In addition, an understanding fo best practices will help ensure that you are working from established practices that deliver the best outcomes.
Key topic ares include:
- Understanding Spare Parts Management
- Financial Considerations
- Metrics and Reporting
- Policies and Procedures
- Parts Identification
- Best Practices
This section of the spare parts management resources library starts with addressing the two most important decisions in spare parts inventory management: whether or not to stock an item, and how many to stock.
Go to the Create and Stock section >>>
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What is most curious about this phase is how few companies have properly developed guidelines on the process and tools to make these decisions. These should be elements of the policies established as part of your spare parts management system.
The problem is that, too often, when there is a policy, the guidelines are vague or nonspecific. For example, they may suggest the collection of appropriate data such as usage and lead time, which is a good start, but then provide no guidance on what to do with this information, that is, how to actually make the stock-holding decision. The intent is right, but the guidance on execution lets it down.
In this section of the spare parts management resources library there is definitive guidance on how to set both the reorder point and the reorder quantity, using a technique that can be applied on a daily basis with little or no software.
Key topic areas include:
- Deciding What to Stock
- Spare Parts Standardization
- Capital Equipment and First Time Buy
- Identifying and Managing Critical Spares
- Setting the Re-Order Point and Re-Order Quantity
This section of the spare parts management resources library addresses the longest phase of the spare parts life cycle, that is, the operations phase.
Go to the Operations section >>>
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During this time, for most spare parts, the item (and the storeroom team) can be involved in a huge range of activities. Accordingly, this is the largest section of our library.
Key topic areas include:
- Forecasting
- Inventory Optimization
- Inventory Optimization: The Inventory Cash Release Process
- Inventory Optimization: Reliability Centered Spares
- The Optimization Trap
- Case Studies
- Managing Repairable Spares
- Storeroom Management
- Data Management and Cleansing
- Inventory Accuracy
- Conducting Stock Takes
- Bar Coding
- Integrating Maintenance and Spare Parts Management
- Bills of Material
- Spare Parts Procurement
This section of the spare parts management resources library address the end-of-life issues with spare parts management. No matter how an item was first created or how long it is part of an inventory, it is almost inevitable that at some point it will become obsolete and therefore require removal and disposal.
Go to the Obsolescence and Disposal section >>>
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Key topic areas include:
- Managing Obsolescence, End of Life, and Last Time Buy
- Spare Parts Disposal
This section of the spare parts management resources library addresses the change management required to ensure lasting effect to the improvements made to your spare parts inventory management.
This is vitally important because spare parts inventory management involves a wide range of personnel and there is often frequent ‘changing of the guard’ – that is changes in personnel. In many cases these personnel have not recieved the required training for the job (hint: they should join SparePartsKnowHow.com).
In other cases the team has been around for many years and has ‘ownership’ of the old methods. These are the methods that you now know are not working for you.
Therefore it is important that spare parts inventory managers understand the issues and requirements relating to implementation and change management.
Go to the Implementation and Change Management section >>>
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- Implementation
- Continuous Improvement
- Change Management
Please note that the quality of our content is checked and regulated by Phillip Slater, the Founder of SparePartsKnowHow.com