Too often, parts stockrooms are viewed as a necessary evil. But the fact is, parts inventory and stockroom management play an essential role within any vehicle maintenance and repair organization.
With good management practices, the right parts are available, at the right time and in the right quantities, while using the least amount of organizational resources.
If this doesn’t happen, asset maintenance and repairs are delayed. That, in turn, increases maintenance and operational costs, as well as asset downtime.
Here are some recommendations to improve your parts inventory and stockroom management
Some Basics
Stockrooms need to be well-organized and responsive. If not, minor frustrations end up costing a few extra minutes. Do your stockroom personnel:
- Know where everything is?
- Keep track of quantities?
- Protect parts from spoilage?
- Give needed parts quickly to technicians?
- Report facts to management?
A Step Further
Better parts inventory and stockroom organization and documentation can improve operations. Some strategies to help with operational efficiency include:
- Create standard operating procedures that are easy to follow and understand.
- Maintain access to spare parts lists for all critical equipment.
- Maintain parts in good condition (proper air conditioning, heat, humidity, etc.).
- Protect parts from mechanical and electrical damage.
- Protect parts from pilferage.
- Be sure agreed upon quantities of the agreed upon SKUs are actually on the shelf.
- Make sure computer records accurately reflect the actual stock on the shelf.
- Establish a process for prompt requisitioning and subsequent replenishment of parts that hit the ROP (reorder point).
- Staff the stockroom as needed.
- Make part check-out quick and simple.
- Have an easy and quick process for the return of surplus parts, incorrect parts and parts for rebuild.
- Make stock parts easy to identify and look up.
- Manage parts interchange.
- Have standard bills of material for repetitive corrective jobs.
- Only issue parts against authorized work order numbers.
- Provide up-to-date costs by part and by work order.
- Deliver parts if necessary.
- Develop partners for finding opportunities for waste reduction.
- Always look at slow moving parts for obsolescence.
- Continuously look for better products, processes and procedures for supplies of parts.
Accuracy
Accurate records play an important function in effective parts inventory and stockroom management. Everyone agrees with the importance of accurate records, but there is disagreement on how to achieve the goal. Here’s my take on how to do this:
- Be sure everyone knows why maintaining accurate records is important.
- Encourage people to take responsibility for their part in achieving this.
- Be certain everyone knows who is accountable for what.
- Provide physical security.
- Provide training in procedures for storeroom personnel and customers.
- Provide the tools to make doing the right thing the easiest thing to do.
- Establish goals and measures and report on the progress “in public.”
- Management must have the willpower to accomplish all this.
Mistake Areas
Did you ever think of all the areas where mistakes can happen to mess up your inventory numbers? Here are some areas to be aware of. If you are having these types of issues, take appropriate measures to help prevent them from occurring.
- Parts removed without paperwork.
- Missing shipping and receiving documents.
- Wrong part sent in and missed in receiving.
- Rebuildables handled differently each time.
- Confusion in unit of measure.
- Marking the wrong SKU (part number) on an incoming part.
- Errors in transcription.
- Returns improperly accounted for.
- One part blocking sight of another.
- Pilferage and theft.
- Toolbox and “rat hole” inventory.
Joel Levitt is director of projects for Reliabilityweb.com’s Reliability Leadership Institute. Reliabilityweb.com provides the latest reliability and uptime maintenance news and educational information to help make asset managers, reliability leaders and maintenance professionals safer and more successful. The Reliability Leadership Institute is a community of practice to improve how organizations deliver asset performance through the use of Uptime Elements, a reliability framework
