As demand for U.S. manufacturing rises and falls, optimizing inventory levels becomes even more important to effective planning and scheduling. If your plant personnel aren’t excelling at inventory management, read this article, in which PCA Director of Operations Dan Moss provides sensible strategies to help alleviate the strain.
Volumes have been written about how plants and other facilities are impacted by poor inventory management — and in particular, excess inventory of all types. Obsolete inventory is one of the culprits, and tackling it poses two specific challenges.
In every industry, spare parts are crucial to equipment reliability. That sometimes leads purchasing managers to overstock items that are frequently used. This approach is OK (if not great) as part of a cohesive inventory management plan to use those parts efficiently, but most of the time, it is not. In a modern, well-run facility, there simply is no room for excess spare parts. This article explains why overstocking is so detrimental.
For many, the term “inventory management” conjures images of neat, orderly warehouses and storerooms. While well-organized storage is an important component of inventory management, it’s just one link in the chain. Properly structured, inventory management ensures that the right parts and/or materials are in the right place and always available at the precise time they are needed. Furthermore, inventory levels are kept at an optimal level to meet demand. Anything more wastes both space and money. This may sound simple in concept, but it’s complex in practice. Inventory management can be applied in two ways—materials for production and/or parts and materials for equipment maintenance.
For companies in highly regulated industries (HRI), acquiring the research firms that develop technologies, solutions or products that they use or sell can be complicated. The process ties up lawyers, accountants and human resource personnel for months, if not years. In our experience, one area that is often not given sufficient attention is the merger of physical elements, such as parts and finished inventory. Unless the research is intellectual property alone, there will likely be raw materials, components, prototypes and products over which the parent company is taking control.
Effective MRO (Maintenance and Repair Parts and Operating Supplies) materials management is simply a derivative of the time-honored function of Supply Demand Planning. Day one in Econ 101, the professor presents a graph explaining the supply demand continuum. That same simple concept applies to MRO parts management. There is certainly the supply aspect; does the storeroom have what is needed when it is needed? But the key to having what is needed, when it is needed, is dependent upon robust demand-side signals ...
