3 Ways to Improve Maintenance Spare Parts Management
In a spare Parts management process, a company and a supplier work together to inventory and ship spares before they are needed. Spare optimization and management allow you to never have to wait days for replacement parts after something breaks or goes missing. From computer and server parts to bolts, fasteners, and even swipe cards, it enables you to optimize and manage spares easily.
The Spare Parts Management procedure ensures that workers receive the correct spare parts in a timely, accurate, and efficient manner. Spare parts management is essentially the management of risk, and many companies don’t take proactive measures to reduce that risk rather than respond to it. To prevent issues from occurring, you need to spend time and resources on spare parts management. The following are some of the many benefits of an effective spare parts management system.
Cost- saving on Inventory: When spare parts are not managed correctly, excess spare parts can accumulate, resulting in excess storage costs. Keeping too many parts not only increases storage costs but also increases carrying costs. Spare parts management ensures that critical spare parts are available when needed without maintaining excessive inventory to save on storage and transportation costs.
Enhancing Productivity: It is easier for the maintenance team to complete work orders quickly and efficiently when parts are readily available. Spare parts management that is inefficient inevitably leads to less efficient production. In addition, having spare parts available can reduce downtime and make equipment repairs faster. When even one machine breaks in a production line, it can halt the entire process. To reduce downtime, it is critical to have the right parts available
Eliminate obsolete and duplicate materials from your EAM/CMMS (Enterprise asset management/ computerized maintenance management system): If your spare parts management solution is ineffective, you may end up with redundant and obsolete parts. Proactively managing spare parts obsolescence, especially for critical equipment, can prevent problems when critical equipment needs to be repaired or maintained. It is costly and time-consuming to add the same material more than once to your EAM/CMMS solution. It also makes it difficult to plan work in the system and choose parts
When creating an effective spare parts inventory management system, there are a few things to remember. We have carefully analyzed the three things to consider to boost performance, improve plant operations, and reduce costs.
Three things to consider are listed below:
Operation strategy involves reacting or anticipating a given situation. Many businesses create operational plans according to the results of reactive events. To successfully manage spare parts, a predictive approach is imperative.
The following factors need to be considered for effective inventory management involving spare parts operation strategies:
Data collection and analysis to improve your business strategy.
To have the ability to cover the entire operational scope for the part management process.
Always be on the lookout for failure patterns that may reveal problems that aren’t immediately obvious.
By using predictive management, you can improve resource utilization, reduce costs, and reduce the amount of time you spend on resolving problems.
Effective Parts Inventory Control:
An inventory management system for spare parts does not always have to be all-inclusive to be productive. Stocks of various parts are unlikely to be in large quantities in reality. Controlling inventory requires proper storage and organization of inventory in a chosen and secure space.
When parts or new stock are taken without records, prompting for reordering is less likely. Identifying the quality of your inventory control can be achieved by analyzing and reviewing your check-out and storage systems.
To achieve better inventory control, consider the following:
The identification and categorization of spare parts can be assisted by marking them with terms like critical to help prioritize parts inventories.
Ensure all spare parts are reviewed regularly based on the changes in time, replacements, and replacements.
When you regularly review spares to identify the excess stock, you can reduce your overall inventory costs.
Enhancing security measures
As part of creating an efficient spare parts management system, it is also essential to limit who has access to the parts inventory warehouse. The inaccuracy of inventory will likely continue to remain a problem if everyone has access to the parts inventory warehouse/room.
When implementing better security measures, the following essential practices should be considered:
Adopting policies that make access to parts inventories off-limits for some staff.
Make sure that physical security measures, such as parts counters, are in place for every inventory stock.
Integrating security cameras with badge access systems.
Providing employees with training on proper care for parts and reviewing critical spare parts on a regular basis
Innovative Cranes and their Spare Parts Management
Maintaining cranes is an essential part of owning and using lifting equipment. As well as keeping your equipment in good working order, it also ensures its safety, which protects those who operate cranes and lifting equipment on site.
By taking proper precautions and caring for the equipment, we can perform proper maintenance and preventive maintenance manually.
Maintenance of equipment and the potential issues that can arise when a piece of vital equipment breaks down are two of the biggest challenges industrial and manufacturing facilities face. Most of these facilities rely on cranes for their operations, so downtime and low productivity are unacceptable. A significant, unplanned maintenance issue could slow or even stop production.
Here are some ways to help you be prepared for these situations and have the right parts available.
Implement an Effective Preventive Maintenance Program:
By implementing preventive maintenance programs, potential maintenance and safety issues can be addressed before they become critical and threaten employee safety, productivity, and revenues. You can also manage your parts more efficiently with it. It is important that preventive maintenance is performed on a regular basis in order to minimize unplanned downtime and minimize costs, but it is also important to plan for the parts you will need in case of unplanned downtime.
In most companies, preventive maintenance programs are in place, but it is essential to make sure that these programs work together with parts organizations and service departments to share information and improve parts management.
Maintain a Proactive, Informed Spare Parts Inventory:
Work closely with your local crane service organization or crane provider to develop a proactive approach to spare parts inventory. There are a number of third-party providers that can analyze your needs and provide recommendations about which parts and how many you should have on hand at local stock levels.
The preventive maintenance program should include both historical maintenance data and routine maintenance schedules. Keeping track of any spare part expiration dates and which parts are due for replacement is beneficial.
Identify How Parts Perform within the Equipment:
To determine which crane parts to keep on hand, it’s important to understand how those parts contribute to crane performance and operation. There are many crane parts that work together as components of assemblies. Replacement of any one of those parts is recommended along with replacement of all the parts of the assembly.
Spare parts assemblies are sold by many crane providers, and they can provide guidance about which components should be replaced/purchased as part of an assembly. This practice can also reduce overall installation time.
It is possible for a major breakdown to occur in a critical crane or hoist during production that will result in a significant loss of production and, therefore, potential delays in the delivery of products to customers. In the absence of a backup crane and the required crane and hoist parts weeks or months away, an unplanned breakdown can be devastating to deliveries and your bottom line.
In cases where cranes or hoists are critical to production, an analysis must be performed to determine which spare parts must be maintained in MRO (Maintenance, Repair & Operations) inventories.
Among the factors to consider in making this determination are:
Maintenance inspections and their quality.
A breakdown history and the age of the crane or hoist.
Usage history of repair parts.
Inventory of current parts.
Spare parts availability and delivery time from the manufacturer of cranes and hoists.
Critical parts and components are probably the biggest question mark when it comes to determining what parts to stock within MRO inventories. Most off-the-shelf replacement parts are easy to get from the factory with current production hoists. It is very important to research parts availability for hoists and crane components if critical components are manufactured off-shore. If you have a critical breakdown and you can’t get parts for months, you may have to ship equipment overseas or replace the equipment completely due to a lack of domestic inventory.
In most cases, high-capacity built-up hoists and cranes require a custom or special orders. The same is true for older hoists and end truck assemblies no longer manufactured. It is quite common for replacement parts to be unavailable for five or ten years after a hoist model has been discontinued
Despite what many people believe, crane repairs are not the most expensive part of the process. Loss of operating income is the result of a crane that is out of service. Downtime costs can be extremely high when you consider lost business opportunities and wasted business support costs.
It is estimated that cranes have a life span of 20-30 years, with MRO inventory providing an approximate life span of 80 years.
