Survey Reveals 5 Factors for Spares Management Success

The 2009 Materials and Spare Parts Management Survey identified five factors that are critical to achieving materials and spare parts management success. To find out what the five factors are watch the video at my YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/phillipslater1

Are Your Spares Fit for Purpose, When Required?

Last night I attended the Asset Management Council meeting in Melbourne, Australia. At the meeting I made a presentation titled Materials Management, The Missing Link in Reliability. During the presentation I show some photos of storerooms where it is clear that the spares being stored either are not properly maintained or could not be maintained due to the way they are stored. In some cases the storage technique actually adds to the degradation. What surprised me though was the number of people who said afterwards 'that looked like our warehouse'!

I know that the photos were not of any of their warehouses but they all recognized the situation. So what is going on here? We recognize the condition, understand the negative impact but do nothing about it. Why do we put up with this? Surely, if we are serious about materials and spare parts management and reliability we would act to ensure that our spares are fit for purpose when required.

Inventory Management Transparency

January is the time when we traditionally set goals for the rest of the calendar year. At a personal level these might be New Year’s Resolutions to give up smoking, lose weight, or get fit. Recently I read an article that claimed that by January 31st 90% of New Year’s Resolutions have been given up.

In inventory management our goal setting might be more formal than a New Year’s Resolution but I wonder what the ‘give up’ rate for inventory management goals usually is. Actually, ‘give up’ is really the wrong term, after all, whoever says ‘we decided to give up on inventory reduction because it is too hard’? We are not talking here about the annual diet or giving up smoking! In management our ‘give up’ mechanism is more subtle than that. Usually projects fade away and are forgotten rather than overtly given up.

One of the main reasons that this occurs is a lack of transparency in tracking actions and results. Perhaps this year your goal should be to put the spare into tranSPAREncy (get it?). More correctly, put some transparency into your spares management program.

During the interviews for the 2009 Materials and Spares Management Survey (completed in just the past few weeks) I was surprised at the number of respondents that had little or no reporting of their spares inventory levels. With no transparency it is little wonder that often these organizations also suffered from high stock outs, low stock turns, and a general lack of faith in their spares management.

When implementing an inventory improvement program, transparency is arguably the number one attribute that separates the achievers from those whose programs just fade away. Inventory management improvement or reduction programs need transparency of who is to do what and by when. Plus transparency in the follow up of those that miss targets or deadlines. Without this, program team members can forget the importance of the program when managing the urgency of day-to-day activities. In my experience, this is when programs then just fade away.

This year, resolve to put more transparency into your inventory reduction or improvement programs.