Spare Parts Planning

Poor part availability erodes the reputation of MRO based businesses through unplanned downtime, scheduled maintenance delays, and violations of contracted SLAs. Having the right parts at exactly the right time eliminates these risks. However, that ideal is nearly impossible to achieve because of the prevalence of Intermittent demand. Traditional planning solutions don’t effectively address intermittency, resulting in widely inaccurate estimates of demand forecasts, reorder points, and safety stock.  Compounding the problem are extremely long supplier lead times on consumable parts and unpredictable repair/return cycles for expensive repairable parts.  All this uncertainty causes planning to devolve into a reactive and manual guessing game.  This wastes tens of millions annually in unneeded parts purchasing, expedites, countless hours of avoidable equipment downtime, and lost revenue.

The Smart IP&O software suite includes mission critical forecasting, supply planning, and inventory optimization solutions coupled with accelerator add-ons designed to address the unique challenges facing MRO and Aftermarket Spare Parts businesses.  The inventory optimization workbench drives what if scenarios leveraging Smart’s patented probabilistic forecasting that yields optimal Min/Max and safety stock recommendations.  Smart’s Repair and Return functionality accurately simulates the inflow and outflow of expensive repairable spare parts recommending if planners should wait for repairs to be completed or to purchase additional spares from suppliers.  Capital budgeting and project-based planning nets accurate order schedules by reconciling available supply with planned and unplanned demand to ensure the parts are purchased when needed.

Sommige productitems hebben een intermittent demand patroon waardoor ze vrijwel onmogelijk te voorspellen zijn met traditionele, op smoothing gebaseerde forecasting methoden. Artikelen met een intermittent vraag - ook bekend als lumpy, volatile, variable or unpredictable demand - hebben veel nul- of lage volumewaarden afgewisseld met willekeurige pieken in de vraag die vaak vele malen groter zijn dan het gemiddelde. Dit probleem doet zich vooral voor bij bedrijven die grote voorraden service en spare parts beheren in sectoren zoals de luchtvaart, ruimtevaart, auto's, hightech en elektronica, evenals in MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul).