Utilities have unique supply chain optimization requirements, primarily ensuring high uptime by keeping all critical machines running continuously. Achieving this involves maintaining a high availability of spare parts to guarantee a consistent, reliable, and safe supply. Additionally, as regulated entities, utilities must also carefully manage and control costs.

Managing supply chains efficiently

To maintain a reliable electricity supply at 99.99%⁺ service levels, for example, utilities must be able to respond quickly to changes in demand in the near term and accurately anticipate future demand. To do so, they must have a well-organized supply chain that allows them to purchase the necessary equipment, materials, and services from the right suppliers at the right time, in the right quantities, and at the right price.

Doing so has become increasingly more challenging in the last 3 years.

• Requirements for safety, reliability, and service delivery are more stringent.
• Supply chain disruptions, unpredictable supplier lead times, intermittent spikes in parts usage have always been problematic, but now they are more the rule than the exception.
• Deregulation in the early 2000’s removed spare parts from the list of directly reimbursed items, forcing utilities to pay for spares directly from revenues[1]
• The constant need for capital combined with aggressively climbing interest rates mean costs are scrutinized more than ever.

As a result, Supply Chain Optimization (SCO) has become an increasingly mission-critical business practice for utilities.  To contend with these challenges, utilities can no longer simply manage their supply chain — they must optimize it.  And to do that, investments in new processes and systems will be required.

[1] Scala et al. “Risk and Spare Parts Inventory in Electric Utilities”. Proceedings of the Industrial Engineering Research Conference.

Inventory Planning and Optimization   

Targeted investments in inventory optimization technology offer a path forward for every utility.  Inventory Optimization solutions should be prioritized because they:

1. Can be implemented in a fraction of the time required for initiatives in other areas, such as warehouse management, supply chain design,  and procurement consolidations. It is not uncommon to start generating benefit after 90 days and to have a full software deployment in less than 180 days.
2. Can generate massive ROI, yielding 20x returns and seven figure financial benefits annually. By better forecasting parts usage, utilities will reduce costs by purchasing only the necessary inventory while controlling the risk of stockouts that lead to downtime and poor service levels.
3. Provide foundational support for other initiatives. A strong supply chain rests on the foundation of solid usage forecasts and inventory purchasing plans.

Using predictive analytics and advanced algorithms, inventory optimization helps utilities maximize service levels and reduce operational costs by optimizing inventory levels for spare parts. For example, an electric utility might use statistical forecasting to predict future parts usage, conduct inventory audits to identify excess inventory, and leverage analytical results to identify where inventory optimization efforts should focus first. By doing this, the utility can ensure that machines are running at optimal levels and reduce the risk of costly delays due to a lack of spares.

By using analytics and data, you can identify which spare parts and equipment are most likely to be needed and order only the necessary items. This helps to ensure that equipment has high up-time. It rewards regular monitoring and adjusting of inventory levels so that when operating conditions change, you can detect the change and adjust accordingly. This implies that planning cycles must operate at a tempo high enough to keep up with changing conditions. Leveraging probabilistic forecasting to recalibrate spares stocking policies for each planning cycle ensures that stocking policies (such as min/max levels) are always up-to-date and reflect the latest parts usage and supplier lead times.

Service Levels and the Tradeoff Curve

The Service Level Tradeoff Curve relates inventory investment to item availability as measured by service level. Service level is the probability that no shortages occur between when you order more stock and when it arrives on the shelf. Surprisingly few companies have data on this important metric across their whole fleet of spare parts.

The Service Level Tradeoff Curve exposes the link between the costs associated with different levels of service and the inventory requirements needed to achieve them.  Knowing which components are important to maintaining high service levels is key to the optimization process and is determined by several factors, including inventory item standardization, criticality, historical usage, and known future repair orders. By understanding this relationship, utilities can better allocate resources, as when using the curves to identify areas where costs can be reduced without hurting system reliability.

With inventory optimization software, setting stocking policies is pure guesswork: It is possible to know how any given increase or decrease will impact service levels other than rough cut estimates.  How the changes will play out in terms of inventory investment, operating costs, and shortage costs, is something no one really knows.  Most utilities rely on rule of thumb methods and arbitrarily adjust stocking policies in a reactive manner after something has gone wrong such as a large stockout or inventory write off.  When adjustments are made this way, there is no fact-based analysis detailing how this change is expected to impact the metrics that matter:  service levels and inventory values.

Inventory Optimization software can compute the detailed, quantitative tradeoff curves required to make informed inventory policy choices or even recommend the target service level that results in the lowest overall operating cost (the sum of holding, ordering, and stock-out costs).  Using this analysis, large increases in stock levels may be mathematically justified when the predicted reduction in shortage costs exceeds the increase in inventory investment and associated holding costs.  By setting appropriate service levels and recalibrating policies across all active parts once every planning cycle (at least once monthly), utilities can minimize the risk of outages while controlling expenditures.

Perhaps the most critical aspects of the response to equipment breakdown are those relating to achieving a first-time fix as rapidly as possible. Having the proper spares available can be the difference between completing a single trip and increasing the mean time to repair, bearing the costs associated with several visits, and causing customer relationships to degrade.

Using modern software, you can benchmark past performance and leverage probabilistic forecasting methods to simulate future performance. By stress-testing your current inventory stocking policies against all plausible scenarios of future parts usage, you will know ahead of time how current and proposed stocking policies are likely to perform. Check out our blog post on how to measure the accuracy of your service level forecast to help you assess the accuracy of inventory recommendations that software providers will purport to provide benefit.

Leveraging Advanced Analytics and AI

When introducing automation, each utility company has its own goals to pursue, but you should begin with assessing present operations to identify areas that may be made more effective. Some companies may prioritize financial issues, but others may prioritize regulatory demands such as clean energy spending or industry-wide changes such as smart grids. Each company’s difficulties are unique, but modern software can point the way to a more effective inventory management system that minimizes excess inventory and places the correct components in the right places at the right times.

Overall, Supply Chain Optimization initiatives are essential for utilities looking to maximize their efficiency and reduce their costs. Technology allows us to make the integration process seamless, and you don’t need to replace your current ERP or EAM system by doing it.  You just need to make better use of the data you already have.

For example, one large utility launched a strategic Supply Chain Optimization (SCO) initiative and added best-in-class capabilities through the selection and integration of commercial off-the-shelf applications.  Chief among these was the Smart Inventory Planning and Optimization system (Smart IP&O), comprising Parts Forecasting / Demand Planning and Inventory Optimization functionality. Within just 90 days the software system was up and running, soon reducing inventory by $9,000,000 while maintaining spares availability at a high level. You can read the case study here Electric Utility Goes with Smart IP&O.

Utilities can ensure that they are able to manage their spare parts supplies in an efficient and cost-effective manner better preparing them for the future.  Over time, this balance between supply and demand translates to a significant edge. Understanding the Service Level Tradeoff Curve helps to understand the costs associated with different levels of service and the inventory requirements needed to achieve them. This leads to reduced operational costs, optimized inventory, and assurance that you can meet your customers’ needs.

Every organization that runs equipment needs spare parts. All of them must cope with issues that are generic no matter what their business. Some of the problems, however, are industry specific. This post discusses one universal problem that manifested in a nuclear plant and one that is especially acute for any electric utility.

The Universal Problem of Data Quality

We often post about the benefits of converting parts usage data into smart inventory management decisions. Advanced probability modeling supports generation of realistic demand scenarios that feed into detailed Monte Carlo simulations that expose the consequences of decisions such as choices of Min and Max governing the replenishment of spares.

However, all that new and shiny analytical tech requires quality data as fuel for the analysis. For some public utilities of all kinds, record keeping is not a strong suit, so the raw material going into analysis can be corrupted and misleading. We recently chanced upon documentation of a stark example of this problem at a nuclear power plant (see Scala, ­­­­­­­Needy and Rajgopal: Decision making and tradeoffs in the management of spare parts inventory at utilities. American Association of Engineering Management, 30th ASEM National Conference, Springfield, MO. October 2009). Scala et al. documented the usage history of a critical part whose absence would result in either a facility de-rate or a shutdown. The plant’s usage record for that part spanned more than eight years of data. During that time, the official usage history reported nine events in which positive demand occurred with sizes ranging from one to six units each. There were also five events marked by negative demands (i.e., returns to warehouse) ranging from one to three units each. Careful sleuthing discovered that the true usage occurred in just two events, both with demand of two units. Obviously, calculating the best Min/Max values for this item requires accurate demand data.

The Special Problem of Health and Safety

In the context of “regular” businesses, shortages of spare parts can damage both current revenue and future revenue (related to reputation as a reliable supplier). For an electric utility, however, Scala et al. noted a much greater level of consequence attached to stockouts of spare parts. These include not only a heightened financial and reputational risk but also risks to health and safety: “Ramifications of not having a part in stock include the possibility of having to reduce output or quite possibly, even a plant shut down. From a more long-term perspective, doing so might interrupt the critical service of power to residential, commercial, and/or industrial customers, while damaging the company’s reputation, reliability, and profitability. An electric utility makes and sells only one product: electricity. Losing the ability to sell electricity can be seriously damaging to the company’s bottom line as well its long-term viability.”

All the more reason for electric utilities to be leaders rather than laggards in the deployment of the most advanced probability models for demand forecasting and inventory optimization.

Utilities in the electrical, natural gas, urban water and wastewater, and telecommunications fields are all asset intensive. Generation, production, processing, transmission, and distribution of electricity, natural gas, oil, and water, are all reliant on physical infrastructure that must be properly maintained, updated, and upgraded over time. Maximizing asset uptime and the reliability of physical infrastructure demands effective inventory management, spare parts forecasting, and supplier management.

A utility that executes these processes effectively will outperform its peers, provide better returns for its investors and higher service levels for its customers, while reducing its environmental impact. Impeding these efforts are out-of-date IT systems, evolving security threats, frequent supply chain disruptions, and extreme demand variability.  However, the convergence of these challenges with mature cloud technology and recent advancements in data analytics, probabilistic forecasting, and technologies for data management, present utilities a generational opportunity to digitally transform their enterprise.

Here are seven digital transformations that require relatively small upfront investments but will generate seven-figure returns.

1. Inventory Management is the first step in MRO inventory optimization. It involves analyzing current inventory levels and usage patterns to identify opportunities for improvement. This should include looking for overstocked, understocked, or obsolete items.  New probabilistic forecasting technology will help by simulating future parts usage and predicting how current stocking policies will perform.  Pats planners can use the simulation results to proactively identify where policies should be modified.

2. Accurate forecasting and demand planning are very important in optimizing MRO service parts inventories. An accurate demand forecast is a critical supply chain driver. By understanding demand patterns that result from capital projects and planned and unplanned maintenance, parts planners can more accurately anticipate future inventory needs, budget properly, and better communicate anticipated demand to suppliers. Parts forecasting software can be used to automatically house an accurate set of historical usage that details planned vs. unplanned parts demand.

3. Managing suppliers and lead times are important components of MRO inventory optimization. It involves selecting the best vendors for the job, having backup suppliers that can deliver quickly if the preferred supplier fails, and negotiating favorable terms.  Identifying the right lead time to base stocking policies on is another important component. Probabilistic simulations available in parts planning software can be used to forecast the probability for each possible lead time that will be faced. This will result in a more accurate recommendation of what to stock compared to using a supplier quoted or average lead time.

4. SKU rationalization and master data management removes ineffective or out-of-date SKUs from the product catalog and ERP database. It also identifies different part numbers that have been used for the same SKU. The operating cost and profitability of each product are assessed during this procedure, resulting in a common list of active SKUs.  Master data management software can assess product catalogs and information stored in disparate data bases to identify SKU rationalizations ensuring that inventory policies are based on the common part number.

5.  Inventory control systems are key to synchronizing inventory optimization.    They provide a cost-efficient way for utilities to track, monitor, and manage their inventory. They helps ensure that the utility has the right supplies and materials when and where needed while minimizing inventory costs.

6. Continuous improvement is essential for optimizing MRO inventories. It involves regularly monitoring and adjusting inventory levels and stocking policies to ensure the most efficient use of resources. When operating conditions change, the utility must detect the change and adjust its operations accordingly. This means planning cycles must operate at a tempo high enough to stay up with changing conditions. Leveraging probabilistic forecasting to recalibrate service parts stocking policies each planning cycle ensures that stocking policies (such as min/max levels) are always up-to-date and reflect the latest parts usage and supplier lead times.

7. Planning for intermittent demand with modern Spare Parts Planning Software.  The result is a highly accurate estimate of safety stocks, reorder points, and order quantities, leading to higher service levels and lower inventory costs.   Smart Software’s patented probabilistic spare parts forecasting software simulates the probability for each possible demand, accurately determining how much to stock to achieve a utility’s targeted service levels.  Leveraging software to accurately simulate the inflow and outflow of repairable spare parts will better predict downtime, service levels, and inventory costs associated with any chosen pool size for repairable spares.