Whether you understand it in detail yourself or rely on trustworthy software, math is a fact of life for anyone in inventory management and demand forecasting who is hoping to remain competitive in the modern world.

At a conference recently, the lead presenter in an inventory management workshop proudly proclaimed that he had no need for “high-fallutin’ math”, which was explained to mean anything beyond sixth-grade math.

Math is not everyone’s first love. But if you really care about doing your job well, you can’t approach the work with a grade school mentality. Supply chain tasks like demand forecasting and inventory management are inherently mathematical. The blog associated with edX, a premier site for online college course material, has a great post on this topic, at https://www.mooc.org/blog/how-is-math-used-in-supply-chain. Let me quote the first bit:

Math and the supply chain go hand and hand. As supply chains grow, increasing complexity will drive companies to look for ways to manage large-scale decision-making. They can’t go back to how supply chains were 100 years ago—or even two years ago before the pandemic. Instead, new technologies will help streamline and manage the many moving parts. The logistics skills, optimization technologies, and organizational skills used in supply chain all require mathematics.

Our customers don’t need to be experts in supply chain math, they just need to be able to wield the software that contains the math. Software combines users’ experience and subject matter expertise to produce results that make the difference between success and failure. To do its job, the software can’t stop at sixth-grade math; it needs probability, statistics, and optimization theory.

It’s up to us software vendors to package the math in such a way that what goes into the calculations is all that is relevant, even if complicated; and that what comes out is clear, decision-relevant, and defensible when you must justify your recommendations to higher management.

Sixth-grade math can’t warn you when the way you propose to manage a critical spare part will mean a 70% chance of falling short of your item availability target. It can’t tell you how best to adjust your reorder points when a supplier calls and says, “We have a delivery problem.” It can’t save your skin when there is a surprisingly large order and you have to quickly figure out the best way to set up some expedited special orders without busting the operating budget.

So, respect the folk wisdom and don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.

When deciding on the right stocking parameters for spare parts and service parts, it is important to distinguish between consumable and repairable service parts.  These differences are often overlooked by service parts planning software and can result in incorrect estimates of what to stock.  Different approaches are required when planning for consumables vs. repairable spare parts.

First, let’s define these two types of spare parts.

• Consumable parts are spares contained within the equipment which are replaced rather than repaired when they fail. Examples of consumable parts include batteries, oil filters, screws, and brake pads.  Consumable spare parts tend to be lower-cost parts for which replacement is cheaper than repair or repair may not be possible.
• Repairable parts are parts that are capable of being repaired and returned to service after failing due to causes like wear and tear, damage, or corrosion. Repairable service parts tend to be more expensive than consumable parts, so repair is usually preferable to replacement. Examples of repairable parts include traction motors in rail cars, jet engines, and copy machines.

Traditional spare parts planning software fail to do the job

Traditional parts planning software is not well-adapted to deal with the randomness in both the demand side and the supply side of MRO operations.

Demand-Side Randomness
Planning for consumable spare parts requires calculation of inventory control parameters (such as reorder points and order quantities, min and max levels, and safety stocks). Planning to manage repairable service parts requires calculation of the right number of spares. In both cases, the analysis must be based on probability models of the random usage of consumables or the random breakdown of repairable parts.  For over 90% of these parts, this random demand is “intermittent” (sometimes called “lumpy” or “anything but normally distributed”). Traditional spare parts forecasting methods were not developed to deal with intermittent demand. Relying on traditional methods leads to costly planning mistakes. For consumables, this means avoidable stockouts, excess carrying costs, and increased inventory obsolescence. For repairable parts, this means excessive equipment downtime and the attendant costs from unreliable performance and disruption of operations.

Supply-Side Randomness
Planning for consumable spare parts must take account of randomness in replenishment lead times from suppliers. Planning for repairable parts must account for randomness in repair and return processes, whether provided internally or contracted out. Planners managing these items often ignore exploitable company data. Instead, they may cross their fingers and hope everything works out, or they may call on gut instinct to “call audibles” and then hope everything works out.  Hoping and guessing cannot beat proper probability modeling. It wastes millions annually in unneeded capital investments and avoidable equipment downtime.

Whether you are using ‘Min/Max’ or ‘reorder point’ and ‘order quantity’ to determine when and how much to restock, your approach might deliver or deny huge efficiencies. Key mistakes to avoid:

1. Not recalibrating regularly
2. Only reviewing Min/Max when there is a problem
3. Using Forecasting methods not up to the task
4. Assuming data is too slow moving or unpredictable for it to matter

“We have over 150,000 SKU x Location combinations. Our demand is intermittent. Since it’s slow moving, we don’t need to recalculate our reorder points often. We do so maybe once annually but review the reorder points whenever there is a problem.” – Materials Manager.

This reactive approach will lead to millions in excess stock, stock outs, and lots of wasted time reviewing data when “something goes wrong.” Yet, I’ve heard this same refrain from so many inventory professionals over the years. Clearly, we need to do more to share why this thinking is so problematic.

It is true that for many parts, a recalculation of the reorder points with up-to-date historical data and lead times might not change much, especially if patterns such as trend or seasonality aren’t present. However, many parts will benefit from a recalculation, especially if lead times or recent demand has changed. Plus, the likelihood of significant change that necessitates a recalculation increases the longer you wait. Finally, those months with zero demands also influence the probabilities and shouldn’t be ignored outright. The key point though is that it is impossible to know what will change or won’t change in your forecast, so it’s better to recalibrate regularly.

This standout case from real world data illustrates a scenario where regular and automated recalibration shines—the benefits from quick responses to changing demand patterns like these add up quickly. In the above example, the X axis represents days, and the Y axis represents demand. If you were to wait several months between recalibrating your reorder points, you’d undoubtedly order far too soon. By recalibrating your reorder point far more often, you’ll catch the change in demand enabling much more accurate orders.

Rather than wait until you have a problem, recalibrate all parts every planning cycle at least once monthly. Doing so takes advantage of the latest data and proactively adjusts the stocking policy, thus avoiding problems that would cause manual reviews and inventory shortages or excess.

The nature of your (potentially varied) data also needs to be matched with the right forecasting tools. If records for some parts show trend or seasonal patterns, using targeting forecasting methods to accommodate these patterns can make a big difference. Similarly, if the data show frequent zero values (intermittent demand), forecasting methods not built around this special case can easily deliver unreliable results.

Automate, recalibrate and review exceptions. Purpose built software will do this automatically. Think of it another way: is it better to dump a bunch of money into your 401K once per year or “dollar cost average” by depositing smaller, equally sized amounts throughout the year. Recalibrating policies regularly will yield maximized returns over time, just as dollar cost averaging will do for your investment portfolio.

How often do you recalibrate your stocking policies? Why?

1. Blaming Shortages on Lead Time Variability
Suppliers will often be late, sometimes by a lot. Lead time delays and supply variability are supply chain facts of life, yet inventory carrying organizations are often caught by surprise when a supplier is late.  An effective inventory planning process embraces these facts of life and develops policies that effectively account for this uncertainty.  Sure, there will be times when lead time delays come out of nowhere.  But most often the stocking policies like reorder points, safety stocks, and Min/Max levels aren’t recalibrated often enough to catch changes in the lead time over time.  Many companies only review the reorder point after it has been breached, instead of recalibrating after each new lead time receipt.  We’ve observed situations where the Min/Max settings are only recalibrated annually or are even entirely manual.  If you have a mountain of parts using old Min/Max levels and associated lead times that were relevant a year ago, it should be no surprise that you don’t have enough inventory to hold you until the next order arrives.

2. Blaming Excess on Bad Sales/Customer Forecasts
Forecasts from your customers or your sales team are often intentionally over-estimated to ensure supply, in response to past inventory shortages where they were left out to dry. Or, the demand forecasts are inaccurate simply because the sales team doesn’t really know what their customer demand is going to be but are forced to give a number. Demand Variability is another supply chain fact of life, so planning processes need to do a better job account for it.  Why should rely on sales teams to forecast when they best serve the company by selling? Why bother playing the game of feigning acceptance of customer forecasts when both sides know it is often nothing more than a WAG?  A better way is to accept the uncertainty and agree on a degree of stockout risk that is acceptable across groups of items.  Once the stockout risk is agreed to, you can generate an accurate estimate of the safety stock needed to counter the demand variability.  The catch is getting buy-in, since you may not be able to afford super high service levels across all items.  Customers must be willing to pay a higher price per unit for you to deliver extremely high service levels.  Sales people must accept that certain items are more likely to have backorders if they prioritize inventory investment on other items.  Using a consensus safety stock process ensures you are properly buffering and setting the right expectations.  When you do this, you free all parties from having to play the prediction game they were not equipped to play in the first place.

3. Blaming Problems on Bad Data
“Garbage In/Garbage Out” is a common excuse for why now is not the right time to invest in planning software. Of course, it is true that if you feed bad data into a model, you won’t get good results, but here’s the thing:  someone, somewhere in the organization is planning inventory, building a forecast, and making decisions on what to purchase. Are they doing this blindly, or are they using data they have curated in a spreadsheet to help them make inventory planning decisions? Hopefully, the latter.  Combine that internal knowledge with software, automating data import from the ERP, and data cleansing.  Once harmonized, your planning software will provide continually updated, well-structured demand and lead time signals that now make effective demand forecasting and inventory optimization possible.  Smart Software cofounder Tom Willemain wrote in an IBF newsletter that “many data problems derive from data having been neglected until a forecasting project made them important.” So, start that forecasting project, because step one is making sure that “what goes in” is a pristine, documented, and accurate demand signal.