Long-time maintenance professionals know the challenges involved in parts and inventory management. Commonly, technicians simply ordered their own parts as needed. Maybe they even bought an extra one, which usually sat on the shelf, forgotten and unused.
However, that system leaves a lot to be desired. Particularly when you need to improve uptime for both operations and facilities under challenging business conditions.
Maintenance teams of all sizes are investing in systems for managing repair parts. The benefits of repair part inventory for maintenance tasks will pay off in multiple ways.
Part Lead Times
Lead times become problematic when a key part for a vital asset isn’t available when needed. Many organizations realized the importance of part inventory management for maintenance when they started experiencing recent supply chain issues. Suddenly, limited supplies made it hard to get basic necessities, not to mention vital parts.
Repair part inventory with CMMS software helps maintenance departments control stock based on need and availability. As a result, you’ll find right parts on the shelf. However, you also can minimize other parts that are used less frequently. For example, if a critical part has a three-week lead time, you can adjust stocking levels to make sure it is available when you need it.
Inventory control tools also can enable coworkers to reserve certain parts. That ensures the right parts are available for a particular job. You can also track issue quantities for situations where you only have one part on hand when the job takes two.
Capital Expenditures
A lot of capital sits in your stockroom. Yet an efficient parts inventory management system is consistently one of the most overlooked parts of maintenance management. What many don’t realize, however, is you can get your fastest return on investment (ROI) by implementing inventory control management software.
Maintenance parts and inventory software can help you prevent time- and money-wasting problems like running out of parts, searching for lost parts, or duplicating inventory you didn’t know you had. You also can identify where parts or materials are stored, making it quicker and easier for staff members to find them and preventing duplicate orders because someone didn’t look in the right place. That also helps you track inventory loss or shrinkage, as well as identify slow-moving parts that might be surplus and need to be returned to the vendor.
Documentation and Record Keeping
Using parts inventory management best practices, you can identify where parts or materials are stored. That makes it quicker and easier for staff members to find them and prevents duplicate orders because someone didn’t look in the right place. You also can use barcodes to make it easy to scan parts in or out.
Maintenance inventory software can track shipments, vendor performance and warranty information. That helps you control capital outlays on unused or underused parts and materials. Additionally, you can automate cyclical inventory counts, reducing the man hours needed and ensuring the parts or materials in the system are actually sitting on the shelf or in the parts bin.
Cost Savings
Your organization can save time and money by improving tracking, stocking, ordering, and inventory processes. Part inventory management for maintenance repairs can help quickly identify what you need for which piece of equipment. When an emergency arises, this information also provides critical data for making cost-efficient decisions.
With maintenance inventory software, you’ll know stocking levels, reorder points, storage locations, and supplier information with just a click. You can also track various units of measure for a single inventory item. For example, you might purchase oil by the barrel, but use it by the quart.
Part and inventory management for maintenance is a hot topic for maintenance management. CMMS is the best tool you have for gathering, analyzing, and reporting data about your maintenance parts for inventory management. Contact us to learn more.
