Necessity might be the motherhood of invention, but frustration is the catalyst for action. Despite living in the age where we should be teleporting by now, many of us are fighting the same battles we fought (and lost) last century: Maintenance never fixes anything, production breaks everything, and the storeroom never has anything. As others work to win the first two battles, let's win the last one: the storeroom and, thus, the war .
The following is a short prescription to set up a storeroom at a world-class supporting level before the facility is even operating. Never again let someone grieve about "the storeroom you should have created. "
For the purpose of this discussion, we are only going to consider operating spare parts. This is not intended to be a conversation on principal supplies, office supplies, lubricants or consumables (just operating spares).
When designing a plant or facility and the equipment that will occupy the building, the person responsible in your organization is typically working with an OEM to design, build and, oftentimes, install the equipment. Don't miss this critical step. This is the first and (maybe) only chance you have to specify the exact components you want on your machine. If you do not specify the brand, make and model of what you want, you will be the victim of whatever brand, make and model the OEM gets the best deal on. Their savings become your nightmares. And you've missed the opportunity to exercise part standardization.
Neglectful project engineers either forget to (foolish) or don't ask (criminal) for the bill of materials (BOM) in English, writing, digitally and for the as-built assembly. This is often at an upcharge if asked for after the project. You must have as-built BOMs. If this is not specified, the BOMs you'll receive are very likely to be as-designed. Know the difference.
How do the BOMs relate to the storeroom? Consider that a BOM for anything -- say, a packaging machine -- is a listing of all the components necessary to make that packaging machine. The difference between as-designed and as-built is this: As-designed is what the OEM intended to sell you; the as-built is what you got.
The storeroom will only stock items that appear on an asset's BOM. Not all the components on the BOMs will be stocked, but the components that are stocked will be on a BOM. The value of parts standardization should be very obvious by now.
Consider a complete as-built BOM. How do you determine what parts to stock? A good general rule is to stock items that:
⢠Rotate.
⢠Have to be greased.
⢠Wear out.
⢠Have electrons running through them (not electricity, but electrons).
⢠Are critical (another topic).
⢠Have preventative maintenance conducted on them.
⢠Are "repairable" (you send one out for repair, while one is in service).
⢠Are touched by an operator on a daily basis (it will come off in the person's hand).
Items that wear out have a failure patt ern that is "age-related" and a deterioration curve that is "gradual." Their failure can be trended, and the decision to stock or not stock is dependent on your ability to source the item. Items that have electrons running through them (input/output cards, mother boards, etc.) fail "randomly" and deteriorate "suddenly"; you'll never see it coming. The only strategy is to have a spare.
Stocking any of these items is contingent upon your ability to get them quickly, whatever your definition of long lead time might be. If you have to hold your breath until the part arrives, 26 seconds can seem like a long time.
Spare parts for equipment should be catalogued and in the storeroom before the asset is put into production. This is the most important, yet the most violated, rule for spare parts .
When an OEM installs a piece of equipment, it is generally on-site for the commissioning. The OEM knows what parts to bring during the commissioning run because it has years of experience. When the equipment commissioning phase is over, the OEM might sell you (possibly at a reduced rate) the remaining commissioning spares (rather than truck them back to base). You will have these spares on your shelves for years . You want operating spares and not necessarily the commissioning spares.
Understand the storeroom "you should create."
For more information, contact John Ross at jross@marshallinstitute.com.
