How to Manage Spare Parts
Storage, Issue, Restocking
SageData is based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Many business operations are reliant on specialist equipment for their daily operations. Perhaps
a turf cutter. Perhaps an ore crushing machine. Perhaps a paper making system. The value of the generated
product can be cents or dollars per second.
When the machine breaks down, it is essential to get it
back into service, which means diagnosing the problem, and, where necessary, locating a spare part. So, two
things. The part must be in stock. And it must be easy to find.
This article shows you how to manage
the receipt, storage, location, issue and restocking of spare parts. So when the machine breaks, downtime is
minimised.
Imagine you are running a tight ship
where every spare part that your
business may need is easily found… If it is the case - congratulations, well done! Please
do not waste your time reading the rest of this page. But if your ship is not that tight,
we may be able to help - please continue reading.
If you are running an IT business with real life customers, quickly finding a replacement
part quickly might be critical. For example, a network failure related to a faulty switch
would be easily repaired if only you could find the replacement part. Of course, you know
that you have it somewhere on this or that shelf. The Excel spreadsheet says there are 3
of them...2 were borrowed by the lab staff last Monday...so, where is the last one? Your
manager just called to ask what was going on...Her boss gave her 15 minutes to figure out
the situation and report back... Your manager wants to stay with you on the phone while
you frantically search for the part. She tells you to stop searching and call the lab to
see if you could get back the part they borrowed. 
No luck - the automated message tells you that the lab
team is in training until tomorrow.
Finally, after some stressful minutes you find the part. Success! And a relief...but,
your Director wants to see you and your manager tomorrow morning to review what went
wrong. This is not going to a happy meeting. Sounds familiar?
SageData Solutions can make finding a spare part much easier by relaying on an RFID
search. This is how it would look like with our system in your place: ...a network
failure related to a faulty switch would be easily repaired if only you could quickly
find the replacement parts. Of course, you know you have it somewhere on this or that
shelf. So, you grab the RFID scanner, press the button, and in a split second you would
know the location of that spare part. When your manager calls to find out what is going
on, you report that the replacement part is in your hand and the service will be restored
momentarily…
Our solution for spare parts management is a combination of barcode and RFID technology
managed by the Basset Pro software system. Every spare part would have a unique barcode
label and an RFID tag that would make finding it very simple and quick. Our system
provides a highly customizable database allowing every organization to set up an optimal
spare parts management solution. You would be able to track the parts that went to
another location either to be used or for repair. Our system would remind you when a
calibration of certain equipment is due and 
it would tell you the exact quantity of every part and
their locations. In addition, you could manage checking out / in of the items.
So, the tight ship
, mentioned at the beginning, could be yours if you are willing
to give it a try.
Of course, you would still need to follow operating procedures to keep things in order.
Even the most advanced system would not help finding a much-needed spare part if the RFID
tag has not been registered or the part itself is not in the system. But these are errors
that are easily avoided, and with our help, you would have all the required tools to be
successful.
We would be happy to provide some good examples of our systems.
If you found this useful, you might also want to review:
- an introduction
to barcode technology
- an introduction to RFID
- mobile data
collectors
QAOK5130
