Spares | Inventory Management

Our Materials Engineering solution implementation will ensure the effective management of spares and inventory and provide enhanced procurement capabilities for asset-intensive industries. Increase your asset availability by ensuring that you hold the necessary spares to perform maintenance and enable maximum output from expensive and complex assets. The Optimal Critical Spares Analysis process employs a minimum total cost approach. The total cost defined as the risked cost of running out plus the cost of holding a stock of spare parts/materials. By having a clearer view of inventory and procurement, we can employ a maintenance strategy that will get the most return on investment.

Spending on spare parts and engineering materials in a manufacturing environment is between 35% and 45% of the total asset maintenance budget. By making improvements in the use and cost of spare parts will ensure inventory is reduced.

Ineffective inventory management can affect daily operations and bottom line due to unnecessary purchase and storage costs. Your business also runs the risk of running short on items essential for the running of your business and experiencing downtime as you wait for a critical part.

Warehouse operations are an integral part of a company’s business strategy. Efficient warehouse operations can ensure that a company ships and receives vital stock in time for replenishment on store shelves or in manufacturing facilities. Efficient warehouse operations do not happen by accident, but through adherence to a series of best practices initiatives.

The storage facility must be a full solution including equipment and IT system to ensure optimal storage and optimal operational flow. The Optimisation solution must cater for the correct volumes for businesses, their marketing plans and consider integrate supply chain when providing capacity for disruptions. Inventory management in the context of alignment refers to “the raw materials, component parts, work-in-process, or finished products that are held at a location in the supply chain. The inventory optimisation project’s intent should aim to:

The key insights in inventory optimisation to consider:

The starting point for reduction in inventory levels is proper forecasting of demand in the market prognoses in cooperation with all the links in supply chain. With regards to demand forecasting the data flow and cooperation between the links is essential.

The practices for inventory optimization are based on specialist inventory analysis in the industry and optimisation methodologies. The best practices are recommended and fundamental to achieving significant inventory reductions and bottom-line savings that are the guarantees of inventory optimisation.

Critical challenges of inventory management
  • Misinformed purchasing decisions
  • Managing Shelf Lives and storage requirements
  • Personal safety requirements
  • Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) and Consignment
  • Obsolescence management
  • Environmental implications
Ensure Asset Availability

Optimal can assist you with all your spares planning needs, from Critical Spares Analysis to Warehouse Stock Optimisation. We work with the equipment suppliers and site representatives to facilitate the collection of data to accommodate the analysis and run a range of scenarios to ensure Critical Spares and Inventory requirements are optimised.

  • Inventory & Spares Analysis (Warehouse Stock Optimisation)
  • Equipment Bills of Material (BOM) Development
  • Materials Planning & Consumables
  • Critical Spares Assessment
The Benefits

Intelligent, automated systems can prepare for inventory problems and help organisations plan ahead of time, to ensure less downtime is experienced across the operations. A spare parts and materials approach can result in 5% to 10% of stock level decrease and improved service levels. You will gain an understanding of what category of stock holding is required, stores and purchasing policies, control systems and supplier management.

  • Control costs.
  • Monitor, manage and order spares.
  • Request work orders.
  • Keep track of asset performance.
  • Avoid stock-outs.
  • Schedule maintenance.
  • Capitalise on your scale.
  • Realise more ROI from your EAM.

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