Inventory management can be especially tricky for companies that need to keep track of spare parts. Whether an auto body shop, a construction company, or a manufacturer, certain businesses can&#;t complete their work unless they have the right spare parts on hand.
An optimized spare parts inventory management system is essential for companies that stock high volumes of parts inventory. This article will reveal six parts inventory management best practices your company can implement today.
1. Organize and tag every spare part
Managing spare parts inventory starts with physically organizing your parts. When organizing parts, it&#;s important to consider what parts can be grouped together for maximum convenience and ease of use. This will look different for every business.
Begin by physically tidying every inch of your storage space. Organize shelves, label bins, and rethink where you&#;re storing certain items. Essentially, you&#;ll want to review your inventory storage strategy top to bottom, ensuring that you&#;re making your warehouses, shelves, stockrooms, and storage units are arranged as logically as possible.
Once your storage space is sufficiently streamlined, it&#;s time to physically label your inventory. Inventory management software can automate that process, saving you tons of time, money, and stress. If you use the Sortly inventory app, you can generate barcode and QR code labels for your inventory and link them to corresponding inventory details.
This easy, comprehensive guide can help you:
2. Create a parts inventory list
Whether you barcode or QR code your inventory, you should absolutely create a complete inventory list that details every single thing your business has on hand. If you stock lots of spare parts, you may also want to include parts you only buy when necessary. That way, it&#;ll be easy for your team to search for these items and confirm if you have any leftovers from a special project.
If you&#;re using inventory management software, you can create your inventory list as you sync existing or generate new barcodes and QR codes. For example, with an app like Sortly, you can easily create custom fields to track details that matter to you, along with all the usual categories, including item name, serial number, SKU, color, location, value, and price.
What&#;s more, the best inventory management software makes it easy to track spare parts across multiple locations, like company cars, storage closets, or offsite warehouses.
Even if you aren&#;t adopting a barcode inventory system to manage your spare parts, you still need to maintain an updated inventory list. Of course, you can always do this manually or using an inventory spreadsheet.
No matter how you maintain your inventory list, this report can help you conduct inventory audits and end-of-year inventory counts.
Related: How do you keep track of inventory in Excel?
3. Establish a clear parts reordering process
Now that your inventory is organized, barcoded, and itemized on an inventory list, it&#;s time to turn your focus to how, when, and from whom you order your spare parts. Revisiting and optimizing your reordering process can help you practice better inventory control, improving supplier relationships while preventing costly shortages and stockouts.
For optimal inventory control, determine the very least amount of a given spare part you can have on hand, calculating safety stock and lead time for extra cushion. This calculation is your reorder point&#;the precise stock level that necessitates replenishing inventory.
Once you&#;ve established that minimum, update your inventory list accordingly. If you&#;re using inventory management software like Sortly, set a customized alert so that you&#;ll be notified when inventory levels for given parts fall below a certain level.
All the inventory news & insights you need, delivered straight to your inbox every week.
4. Maintain accurate bills of materials
A bill of materials is an itemized list of every single raw material, spare part, and component required to manufacture a finished product. A BOM also articulates how much of each item or part is required, and stipulates secondary goods that must be included with the finished good, such as manuals and packaging.
One of the most important spare parts inventory management best practices is keeping BOMs up to date. That way, you&#;ll always know exactly what spare parts you need to finish a manufacturing project.
If you&#;re using inventory management software, you can attach BOMs to an item&#;s profile for easy access and improved visibility for your whole team. Otherwise, you&#;ll want to keep them in a clearly-marked, accessible place for quick reference.
5. Forecast demand accurately
By properly forecasting demand, your business can ensure there are enough spare parts to fulfill your customers&#; needs. Knowing when to expect surges in demand&#;plus actually knowing where your spare parts are&#;can help you avoid costly slowdowns, frustrated customers, and a damaged reputation.
And while proper demand forecasting is essential for just about every business, it&#;s especially critical for companies like yours, for which a stockout on one small part could create a domino effect of production problems.
6. Train employees on your inventory management system
KF-SMT contains other products and information you need, so please check it out.
The ultimate best practice for properly managing spare parts inventory? Complete, effective onboarding of the team you&#;ll rely on to maintain accurate records. After all, what good is an inventory management system if your employees can&#;t or won&#;t use it consistently?
For best results, you&#;ll want to choose an inventory system that&#;s simple, customizable, and intuitive. Once you&#;ve chosen a method that works for your company, train every employee who&#;ll use the system. Clearly post standard operating procedures, and offer workshops and retraining classes as needed.
Remember, this onboarding doesn&#;t have to take weeks&#;or even days. Some inventory apps, including Sortly, have been designed so intuitively that almost all users pick up on the way it works right away.
Are you ready to transform how your business does inventory?
Start a Free Trial
About Sortly
Sortly is a top-rated inventory management app perfect for businesses that need to track spare parts. Thanks to Sortly&#;s powerful features, your team will always know exactly how many nuts, bolts, screws, or nails you&#;ve got in stock, where they are, and when it&#;s time to reorder.
Sortly helps you track, manage, and organize your inventory&#;from any device, in any location. We&#;re an easy-to-use inventory software that&#;s perfect for small businesses. Sortly builds inventory tracking seamlessly into your workday so you can save time and money, satisfy your customers, and help your business succeed.
With Sortly, you can track inventory, supplies, parts, tools, assets like equipment and machinery, and anything else that matters to your business. It comes equipped with smart features like barcoding & QR coding, low stock alerts, customizable folders, data-rich reporting, and much more. Best of all, you can update inventory right from your smartphone, whether you&#;re on the job, in the warehouse, or on the go.
Whether you&#;re just getting started with small parts inventory management or you&#;re an expert looking for a more efficient solution, we can transform how your company manages parts inventory&#;so you can focus on building your business. That&#;s why over 15,000 businesses globally trust us as their inventory management solution.
Start your two-week free trial of Sortly today.
Inventory and spare parts management are among the biggest thorns in the side of operations managers in manufacturing.
Often seen as a &#;necessary evil,&#; spare parts inventory management is a task that largely flies under the radar when accomplished correctly, but creates major headaches when it is not. For that reason, the importance of maintaining spare parts in a sensible, efficient and practical way shouldn&#;t be overlooked &#; in spite of the thankless nature of the job.
A good spare parts management system can increase the productivity of your facility, reduce unplanned downtime and, most importantly, make a positive impact on your bottom line. Use these tips to develop or update your parts management plan &#; and make those &#;thankless&#; tasks a bit easier.
Spare part prioritization
You know better than anyone that not every spare part has the same level of criticality for your operations, so you&#;re also the best judge of how to prioritize potential spare part needs. Creating a priority list can very quickly make your spare parts inventory management tasks much more efficient, as well as more effective. Many factors can go into this list, beyond the obvious consideration of which equipment is most critical to your operation.
Lead times, downtime implications and other concerns also play a role as you work out which spares are most critical to keep on hand, and in what quantities. Having a reference list makes ordering and stocking decisions much easier, as it will become clear which parts you&#;ll want to stock in quantity and which can be stocked in lower numbers, or ordered as needed (depending on your specific needs).
Create a comprehensive lead time resource
Lead time for spare part fulfillment is one of the biggest reasons for extended downtime when a machine or component fails. Even a few hours of downtime can wreak havoc on your production schedule. A lead time reference can go hand in hand with your priority list and can play a role in how you assign that priority.
Access to a local supplier who can reliably get you spare parts on demand, for instance, can change your consideration as to how much inventory you need to keep on hand for those parts. Longer lead times for more critical components mean that you&#;ll want to be more proactive about planning ahead, should those parts be needed.
Leverage data
Unplanned downtime and reactive maintenance are productivity destroyers for your facility. Predictive maintenance practices can make things easier for you to be proactive and make more informed decisions about what inventory to keep on hand. Data sensors and monitors can help you understand which equipment is more likely to need maintenance or replacement parts in the near future, making ordering decisions less of a guessing game and more of a data-backed methodology.
Factor in new machinery parts
New equipment is just as subject to the need for replacement parts as older equipment is &#; and new equipment downtime is likely to be even more damaging to your production schedule, since you were likely planning to put that new machine to work right away. Be sure to account for spares for new equipment as part of your spare parts management system. As you prioritize inventory management and plan your ordering, be prepared to address the &#;growing pains&#; that can occur.
Implement security measures
Spare parts inventory control and security should be integrated with your parts management plan. Open, uncontrolled access to inventory is a key driver of missing parts, inaccurate inventory counts and availability shortages. A key element of a spare parts inventory control system is introducing a &#;parts counter&#; &#; a single, controlled point of access to the inventory room.
By only allowing access to personnel working the parts counter, you can have much more control over inventory that enters and exits the room, and will likely see accuracy metrics improve as a result. Additional factors in inventory security are badges or keycards to control access, as well as cameras to help ensure that access to inventory is never compromised.
In maintenance parts inventory management, the bill of materials (BOM) is a comprehensive reference of everything needed to produce a part, product, or component: materials, tools, spare parts and so on. The BOM is a key point of reference for maintenance and repairs and should be optimized to ensure that these processes can be carried out as quickly and efficiently as possible whenever they are scheduled or otherwise required. An optimized BOM is structured and categorized and should also include a process and schedule for monitoring and replenishing spare part levels as needed. This helps to reduce time identifying and locating the correct spare parts for a repair and should ideally eliminate maintenance delays due to emergency part orders.
Managing spare parts inventory is a complex task that requires high levels of organization. One of the most effective ways to achieve the necessary level of organization is to implement a standardized process that all workers involved in maintenance tasks adhere to. The most common method is a work order process, whereby every repair or maintenance task is documented in a ticket that includes the necessary parts that will be taken out of inventory. This process helps to track inventory levels and aids in ordering and forecasting, and is today made easier and more efficient through digitization and automation.
While maintenance and repair operations are critical to the ongoing effectiveness of production, they are not considered tasks that directly create value &#; and thus, they should be carried out as quickly as possible. Time spent locating spare parts or seeking access to the storeroom is time not spent carrying out the tasks that get equipment back up and running in optimal shape. Employees should be able to easily access inventory information and spare parts locations, and they should be able to efficiently access the area in which spares are kept.
A CMMS (computerized maintenance management system) helps you leverage the technology implemented throughout the facility (such as industrial sensors) to organize, plan and carry out maintenance processes as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. A CMMS centralizes key maintenance data in one location, accessible by anyone relevant to the maintenance function, including technicians, managers and stakeholders. With this single source of truth, everyone involved is working from the same set of data, and information is kept up to date in real time.
In maintenance inventory management, automation helps technicians to carry out tasks like those described above &#; work orders, inventory tracking and check-out, maintenance results and more &#; consistently, efficiently and effectively. Human error is the leading culprit behind missed reports and work orders, which can lead to inventory discrepancies, maintenance delays and cost overruns. Automation systems like distribution automation, in this context, do not replace human workers &#; they help them to carry out the &#;administrative&#; components of the job more effectively while letting them focus on their core area of expertise: maintenance.
It&#;s worth repeating, spare parts management is often a thankless task &#; but when you consider the lost revenue and logistical nightmares extended downtime can present, it&#;s much easier to get motivated to implement this &#;necessary evil.&#; A few hundred dollars worth of inventory can prevent thousands &#; or more &#; in lost or delayed revenue that can come as the result of unplanned downtime.
If you need to justify the resource expenditure for a comprehensive management plan to the organization &#; or to yourself &#; you probably won&#;t need to look much further than using any recent downtime event as an illustration. With these six tips in mind, it is our hope that inventory management will become a bit less of a burden for you, and much more of a value driver.
Are you interested in learning more about Smt Spare Parts Supplier? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!