Spare parts stock management: Classification and policy assignment

Abstract

Spare parts management is a maintenance management function that aims to support maintenance activities. It intends to provide real-time information about the available quantities for each spare part and to adopt stock management policies that assure its availability at the lowest possible cost. This paper proposes a methodology for the stock management of spare parts that aims to assign stock management policies to each spare part in an industrial plant. Five groups and five associated stock management policies were defined. Considering that the policy to be allocated depends strongly on the characteristics of demand, two of the groups are intended for generic spare parts, and the other three for specific spare parts. The definition of the groups and the assignment method took into account the associated stock management policy, which in turn took into account the characteristics of the demand for the associated parts. A case study carried out in a manufacturing company that produces electronic systems for the automotive sector showed that the developed methodology allows, simply and intuitively, the assignment of policies that balance the cost of a part being out of stock and the cost of keeping it in stock, thus minimizing total cost.