Spare parts management is an integral part of a preventive maintenance plan as it keeps your equipment running efficiently. Spare parts management minimizes the capital amount blocked in inventory and simultaneously ensures availability on time. Maximize equipment uptime by providing  access to the right spare parts at the right time. 

Spare parts management system to maintain stocks

If a spare parts management program is effective, it would help to rotate these parts so that they work at full capacity for the entire life of an asset. If unable  to get the service life from spare parts according to expectations, then determine the appropriate method of storing and maintaining them. Shelf life of spare parts is largely affects by the way of storing and taking care of. Spare parts may develop defects in them if they are improperly stored. It is the job of the maintenance manager to ensure the protection of spare parts from corrosion and rust. Inspect spare parts on a routine basis to check for damage and also to ensure that certain important components have not dried out. An effective maintenance management program can help in receiving automatically generated notifications for inspecting spare parts.

5 cost-drivers to manage to control spare parts inventory

It would cost you more if you are carrying excess inventory. You can optimize inventory levels by using CMMS which would rank your critical assets based on the results of their downtime. This software ensures that you are spending optimal time, money and resources on most valuable assets. After you determine the critical assets,  identify the spare parts that needs for their maintenance. If your inventory of spare parts for critical assets is well-stocked, you can minimize the risk of sudden failures. Following are 5 cost-drivers that are essential to control spare parts inventory:

• Ordering- Every order creation and processing consumes both time and money. It is recommended that ample time be invested to create purchase orders and process invoices and for issuing payments.
• Human resources- You need people for storeroom management and handling responsibilities like issuing spare parts, restocking them, receiving and inspecting these parts. 
• Space factor – For holding spare parts, it needs to spend on space for storage. Holding becomes an issue to consider, particularly when the space is at premium.
• Investing in security systems- It depends on the inventory and its location if you need to invest in security equipment like security walls, cameras etc.
• Information system- Companies often use maintenance management systems for spare parts management, particularly the inventories. Maintenance management software like CMMS requires investment for buying, implementing, operating and upgrading it.

9 reason to use maintenance software like CMMS for spare parts management

• Maintenance software like CMMS can save yearly inventory costs for spare parts by 5% to 10%
• Efficiently track and manage inventory 
• Identify the parts which have become obsolete
• CMMS helps to determine when to replace the obsolete parts
• Monitor usage of spare parts using maintenance software
• Monitor stock levels 
• CMMS allows sending of automatic alerts when it reaches the reorder level of of a spare parts
• This software helps to streamline the tasks of preventive maintenance
• Define smart strategies for spare parts management using CMMS

Use smart maintenance management software like DreamzCMMS to achieve the goal for spare parts management to balance between carrying costs and performance, reliability and availability of spare parts. Efficient spare parts management along with Preventive maintenance from DreamzCMMS can do wonders in solving Maintenance and Inventory management related problems.