Parts Inventory Management: What do You Need in Your Storeroom?
Paweł Bęś, Logistics and Maintenance Marketing Expert, QRmaint
Posted 11/26/2024
Parts inventory management is crucial in every production facility to keep equipment running. To avoid production loss, no company should allow itself to run out of stock of its core spare parts. This is why manufacturing facilities keep a special area to store ready-to-use parts when needed.
If a company possesses many facilities, effective spare parts management requires significant stock with multi-criteria classification and the capability for smooth spare parts flow between different locations. Supplying spare parts should also be easy and time effective.
For that purpose, companies use a CMMS system, which, despite being strictly dedicated to running maintenance operations, has a built-in module for spares management. This article will explain efficient spare parts management utilizing a CMMS system and its functionalities. Learn how your company can benefit from a modern solution that covers maintenance operations from top to bottom, regardless of the number of facilities.
What is a Spare Parts Management System?
A Spare Parts Management System is a well-settled process for stock dedicated to handling parts explicitly required to cover the internal needs of a production facility. The primary purpose is to minimize the impact of downtime when machines are out of work due to breakdowns. It means that manufacturing companies need stock for parts that wear out quickly, such as screws, bolts, gaskets, or more complex components like drives, as well as essentials like lubricants required for preventive maintenance.
The Spare Parts Management System is often based on software despite many companies still using paperwork and complicated methods. However, many facilities have already switched to Spare Parts Management software. Plant managers are keen to handle spare parts stock within warehouse management systems, which might include necessary functionalities. Still, these are not always well integrated into overall operations.
Therefore, the central system responsible for handling spare parts is a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS). This system covers maintenance and service operations, including spare parts management. It is much more efficient because spare parts can be directly ordered from stock through maintenance work orders and assigned to specific jobs. Thus, maintenance workers can secure any part for a work order before it is out of stock.
What are the features of CMMS system spare parts management?
The CMMS system can significantly enhance your organization’s spare parts inventory management. To fully appreciate the benefits, it’s essential to better understand its features. Below are some key features to look for in a CMMS to optimize your spare parts inventory and maintenance operations:
Part Multi-Catalogue: A CMMS allows you to create and maintain a comprehensive database of spare parts, so you can choose specific details such as part number, description, manufacturer, and spare cost. You can define all this based on your internal needs. To make it even easier, you can keep images of spare parts in the system so that maintenance workers know precisely how the parts look. For example, if you have similar-looking cogwheels, springs, or other items with slight differences, having accurate images helps reduce mistakes in selecting the correct parts.
Stock Levels: The CMMS system helps track inventory levels in real time. As mentioned above, maintenance workers can allocate parts to individual work orders so that the system knows when a part is being used. This way, the CMMS helps avoid stockouts or overstocking, ensuring you’ll never have too many parts and will always know when stock needs reordering. So, this also boils down to so-called reorder points.
Automatic Reorder Points: The CMMS can be integrated with suppliers, so you can set automatic reorder points for when parts are nearly out of stock. This action triggers purchase orders when inventory levels fall below a specified threshold. It may require integration with the supplier’s system, but it’s possible and much more convenient if you have reliable suppliers.
Traceability: As mentioned previously, you can input ‘Lot’ and ‘Serial Number Tracking’ for spare parts. This feature helps you manage parts with unique identifiers to ensure traceability and quality control. You can view the entire lifecycle of spare parts, allowing you to assess if certain parts need a different supplier. As we all know, the manufacturing quality of spare parts affects their wear. For example, inappropriate metal alloys can lead to faster abrasion, and some suppliers may provide parts of lower quality (something you learn over time). On the other hand, you can simply evaluate whether buying cheaper spare parts is still cost-effective.
Procurement and Purchasing: Not all spare parts can be ordered automatically. Occasionally, you may want to assess new suppliers or evaluate other offers based on pricing. The CMMS system can help provide a clear overview with RFQ (Request for Quote) and Bidding features to streamline the procurement process. It helps manage requests for quotes and bids from multiple vendors so you can get robust vendor management. A CMMS can give you an Outlook unlimited database of suppliers and their contact information (you can also keep additional notes on vendors in the system).
QR Codes and NFC: The CMMS system uses modern technology to allow easy identification of parts. With QR codes and NFC, you can link spare parts to work orders in your stock to accurately track parts retrieval and consumption. It functions similarly to a WMS, but it’s integrated within the entire workflow, so each part can be tracked from the machine to the stock. How does it work? A maintenance worker approaches a machine that appears to be broken, scans the machine tagged with an NFC or a QR code, and can instantly see its history. After inspection, they can see which part from stock is needed, book the part in the work order, and then go to the spare parts stock. In the CMMS, they can locate the spare part and pick the correct one, confirming the action by scanning the NFC tag or QR code on the warehouse shelf.
Reporting and Analytics: Using the CMMS system, you can get inventory reports anytime. With just a few clicks, you can generate reports on inventory levels to help assess usage trends and, most importantly, perform cost analysis. Other reports can cover your procurement process, allowing you to analyze purchasing patterns, vendor performance, and critical budget spending trends. However, nothing is as helpful as spare parts usage analysis. With such reports, you can identify frequently used parts and optimize stock levels accordingly.
Mobile Inventory Management: Nothing makes the job of maintenance workers as easy as a mobile device. Just a cell phone is enough to handle the entire spare parts cycle. If you have a CMMS system with mobile functionality, your personnel can move freely around the production plant and manage work orders on their mobile devices. So, all the tasks mentioned above can be handled on mobile.
Integration: If you have a WMS system or an ERP, the CMMS system can still be integrated into them, providing you with a holistic view of all operations happening in your company. However, we don’t want to mention only systemintegrations when we talk about integrations. A modern CMMS can manage spare parts inventory from several locations, so if one of your locations is short on stock for certain spare parts, you can check if other places have them in stock. Requests can be sent from mobile devices to another warehouse to deliver spare parts. I think this is one of the best functions because you can track your stock across multiple locations. Based on my experience in logistics, this can yield huge savings. Let’s look at the average spare parts cost; even a tiny amount well-tracked daily can generate savings of several thousand dollars a year (depending on the size of the company).
Summary – Parts Inventory Management
In this article, I shared with you some of the functions of the CMMS system regarding spare parts inventory management. I believe that the CMMS system is the solution that can help your company scale, and based on spare parts traceability, you’ll be able to find savings much faster than you can imagine.
Getting digital operations is a trend that aligns with everything that is coming. Sustainability, lower costs, and green transition may also be a part of your ESG-criteria assessment process. So, there are long-term benefits, and I think the CMMS system is a highly cost-effective solution. It helps minimize human input, reduces errors, and more. It’s all up to your consideration. In the end, if you’re looking for process automation, I highly recommend a CMMS to assist you with the areas I’ve mentioned.
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