The quality of the spare part management system is imperative to the success of the manufacturing business or the team. Without spare part controls and planning can lead to insufficient and inefficient inventory storage. As a result, your business will undergo unforeseen expenses and unwanted downtime. Investing time and resources in spare parts inventory management is crucial to prevent the issues before they come to be while maintaining the productivity and efficiency of plant operations. Thus, it is better to establish a strategic method in order to determine the best industry practices for managing and storing the inventory.

Here are a few of the factors mentioned that you must consider before selecting spare parts management software or system.

7 Things to Consider When Doing Spare Parts Inventory Management

1. Operating Methodology

An operating strategy refers to a plan that outlines how an organization will use its resources to support production and infrastructure. A strong operating strategy is like a blueprint for a spare parts management system. With a good operating strategy, an organization can more efficiently use and allocate spare parts, saving time and money. A proper operating strategy protects the industry against any unpredictable problems or circumstances.

The spare part inventory management system will either operate from a reactive or predictive position. The data collection and analysis includes predictive management, where they have the ability to look after the entire scope of the operation to locate and solve the significant problems that may arise in the long run. It also looks out to ensure the failure patterns that can arise problems and are not clearly visible. As a result, predictive management will help your business to make better use of resources, and lessen the time and cost associated with correcting the issues.

2. Establishing a uniform work order procedure

The use of robust and standardized work procedures is essential for effective inventory management. There is no better way to standardize the workflow than clearly defining the best practices and having the entire process supported by spare parts management software.

3. Inventory Management

As a parts manager, you don’t need to have a comprehensive inventory of spare parts to make an effective management plan or system. Moreover, it’s unreasonable and unnecessary to store different spare parts in huge quantities. You must create clear criteria for defining and classifying the spare parts. You can use designations, like critical and uncritical spares, for arranging your inventory priority-wise.

Storing and arranging spare parts in the designated place is important for the proper control of the inventory. This will help you to add or find a new spare part seamlessly without any delays.

4. Comprehensive knowledge of lead times for various parts

Lead time is the duration of time between the initiation and completion of a production process. This is an important factor to consider when determining which parts need to be stocked. If your organization can afford downtime, then initially you can eliminate easily obtainable spare parts from your stocking plan. However, if even a small amount of production time lost leads to significant financial loss for your company, then it’s advisable to have spare parts with long lead times in stock and ready to be used. Many parts are manufactured only after an order is placed, so having spare parts on hand will help avoid costly delays.

5. Nothing Special About New Equipment

If you have installed the new equipment then it is extremely important to spare your time in start-up or commission of the latest one. Unfortunately, spare part failure upon startup is a common occurrence and you can mitigate downtime by having spares available for a replacement right away.

6. Determine Your Risk

Undeniably, the equipment will fail but determining and calculating the risk of downtime can help in solidifying your decision to stock parts. This makes the entire process seamless and hassle-free.

7. Better security measures are being adopted.

When it comes to creating an efficient spare parts management system, the last but not least step is limiting access to the parts inventory warehouse. If everyone has access to the warehouse/room, it’s likely that you’ll never be able to fix inventory inaccuracies.

Why Choose Infraon for Spare Parts Management?

Infraon provides 360-degree and complete management of the inventory of spare parts and components. They have a computerized program that helps enterprises keep track of their spare parts inventory. This system can be used to track the location, quantity, condition, cost of spare parts, and cost of repairs. It includes storing and organizing information about spare parts, monitoring inventory levels, and managing their requisition. Do you want to know more about their services? Get in touch with their representative today.