Effective spare parts programs can help an organization save money by avoiding unplanned downtime and preventing an obsolete or overstocked inventory. On the other hand, poorly managed Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO) can be a primary contributor to poor availability and a huge drain on an organization’s finances.
Let’s take a look at what spare parts is, why it’s important, what the limitations are, and what the future of spare parts warehousing looks like.
A spare parts program stocks and maintains an inventory of critical parts, materials, consumables, and specialty tools required to keep a manufacturing or processing facility operational. A clear spare parts stocking strategy is required to make sure you are not overstocking spares (and wasting money) or understocking spares and risk delayed repair times for critical assets.
Spare parts are often referred to as Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO) because it not only involves the maintenance and repair of production assets but also includes inventory management of tools and consumables needed to run the process.
Should the part be stocked or not? Risk of both determining what “should be” inventoried and the preservation of these parts.
Spare parts programs have two parts:
Today, facility data systems rely heavily on Subject Matter Expertise and while these resources add significant value, they can be better utilized in situations where their expertise. Data-driven reliability and intelligence solutions, such as Spare Parts Optimization and RCM, can improve your facility’s reliability performance through a combination of engineering and data science.
The primary value of a robust spare parts program is having the parts available when needed, but additional benefits of this include:
As part of its comprehensive asset management program, a new processing facility off the coast of Africa identified the need for a spare parts strategy as part of its capital planning. Pinnacle helped the facility develop a spare parts strategy that reduced the projected stocking costs by 75%.
Many facilities are challenged with striking the proper balance of spare parts to be held in inventory. On one hand, downtime can be significantly reduced if all spares needed for a repair are immediately available. However, this practice is costly. On the other hand, if spares are not readily available, the lead time from Manufacturers or Vendors can cause production loss and may even jeopardize your facility’s regulatory compliance.
Challenges associated with spare parts warehousing generally include:
Vendors are not stakeholders in the running of your facility and will oftentimes provide a list of spare part recommendations (RSPL) based solely on the equipment package they sold you, without taking into consideration the number of similar assets, the interchangeability of similar parts between other assets or the criticality of the assets. This practice often results in overstocking, which runs the risk of high carrying costs, loss of function costs, and potential obsolescence.
At the center of spares planning is determining the demand of parts to set inventory levels. The issue with this method is that most organizations do not have a good idea of part demand, which makes it difficult to plan an optimal spare parts stocking strategy.
Many organizations do not store or preserve their equipment correctly, which leads to shelf-life concerns and degradation and can cause loss of function. An overstock situation can put a greater burden on any preservation activities which could result in premature failure of the part causing additional downtime and rework.
Learn more about how data-driven reliability can help improve your maintenance and operations programs.
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