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Spare parts management is easy with eMaint CMMS.
With the right parts inventory management software, you can be confident your team is equipped with the parts they need and discover how to minimize spend while maintaining your inventory.
Be ready for unplanned downtime — when critical spares make the difference between crises averted and costly shutdowns.
Parts Inventory Management Software, Simplified
Quickly locate and assign parts to work orders. Oversee parts inventory management and spending. Book parts in the field and offline with the mobile app.
You’re busy. Let eMaint take care of the spare parts management madness.
Spare parts at the ready
Track your spare parts, search for what you need, and easily assign to work orders. Make sure critical spares are on hand for emergencies. Your view is configurable – drag & drop columns, edit labels, and personalize your workspace.
Get inventory just right: always in stock, never out of budget
Optimize your inventory levels to prevent both shortages of critical spares and overspending on unnecessary inventory. The eMaint Parts Reorder List notifies you when parts dip below your set limits. Gain visibility on slow-moving parts orders and plan accordingly.
Our mobile app makes life easy
Manage work orders, view asset info, and book spare parts on the go with the eMaint mobile app. Take a photo of a machine failure in the field, upload it, and submit a work request – then, book relevant parts to get the job done. Work offline, your updates syncing automatically once a connection is re-established.
Simple, Drag & Drop Maintenance Scheduling for Parts Inventory Management
Manage parts assignments, work orders, and preventive maintenance with an intuitive, interactive calendar.
Eliminate the hours spent planning, cross-referencing availability, and scratching your head over schedule conflicts.
Streamlined planning: save time & make sure work is assigned
Manage and plan out maintenance. Schedule PMs to trigger based on equipment usage or asset health data. Ensure your team has the right parts for the job.
Easy, drag & drop PM calendar
Map out work orders and PMs with the eMaint Scheduler, and intuitive, interactive calendar. Assign work quickly. Make sure your assignments, schedules, and spare parts availability work in harmony.
Automatically see and resolve conflicts
Learn of schedule conflicts ahead of time with notifications, so you can resolve them right away. Get notified of overscheduling. Optimize your maintenance planning by level-loading work distribution and planning ahead for spare parts needs.
Our Global Maintenance Storeroom Has Your Back
eMaint unites your inventory across worksites, giving you access to more parts and powerful visibility.
A critical asset goes down, and the spare you need is missing. Thankfully, you have eMaint.
Get what you need quickly in emergencies
Request and share spare parts across worksites in multi-site businesses. Discover if other sites have key critical spares when you need them right away and face costly downtime.
Your parts inventory command center
Manage spare parts across the enterprise. Send reqs, POs, and charges between sites. View and analyze inventory levels in individual storerooms, across regions, or throughout the organization.
Simple reporting drives powerful changes
Report on spare parts inventory with easy-to-use analytics and dashboards. Build enterprise-level reports, streamlined thanks to data standardization. Discover trends in parts charges, inventory levels, MTTR, and more maintenance KPIs that can improve strategy across the business.
Seamless Purchasing & ERP Integration for Your Parts Inventory Management System
eMaint connects to your key business systems, from SAP to Salesforce and Power BI.
Say goodbye to data entry errors, dueling inventory systems, and complex, costly integrations
Simplified integration that unites MRO & finance
eMaint brings MRO and purchasing or finance teams together. Connect to 1000+ apps, including ERP platforms like SAP, Oracle NetSuite, or Sage Intacct. Trust in the helpful eMaint API or rely on eMaint’s low-code, iPaaS integration offering.
Track & update your inventory across software
Automatically update inventory data between eMaint and your ERP. Get rid of data entry errors. Eliminate miscommunications and confusion over maintenance vs. financial records.
Easy purchase reqs, POs, and charges
Route purchase requisitions and orders from maintenance to inventory or accounting, ensuring financial traceability for your maintenance work. Build workflows between eMaint and your accounting system to strengthen visibility on labor costs. Send parts reqs directly to purchasing to speed up process in maintenance emergencies.
Frequently Asked Questions for Parts Inventory Management Software
Parts inventory management has always been a critical and complex challenge. Having the right part in the right quantity at the right time and in the right place requires planning, precision, and balance.
Spare parts management (SPM) is about knowing the quantity, place, and time of replenishing spare parts to achieve operational efficiency and performance reliability. The scope of spare parts management refers to all processes between the supplier and the point of use in which technicians swap out stock items to repair or substitute for defective parts.
Because parts are consumed to maintain assets in service, organizations will have to work within their budget to maximize availability times and prolong the quality of goods. Today, many maintenance teams are turning to spare parts inventory management software to optimize their storeroom operations.
The parts inventory management system tools offered by an effective computerized maintenance management software (CMMS) are a vital part of running a successful maintenance storeroom. eMaint’s spare parts inventory management software simplifies tracking parts across storerooms worldwide and helps improve inventory accuracy. Organizations can set-up reorder points to track parts and auto-generated purchase orders.
With a CMMS, you can eliminate data entry and duplicate data with barcoding. Use barcodes and QR codes to scan and view part records instantly on a tablet or mobile device, and your team can use parts kitting to issue or return multiple parts with a single item number.
5 Techniques for Better Parts Inventory Management Strategy
- Categorize your parts inventory
- Active parts inventory (10 or more used each month)
- Commodity parts (1 or more used each month)
- Rarely used parts (fewer than 1 used each month)
When stocking spare parts inventory, consider factors including lead time, consumption rate, the costs associated with storage, and the potential costs and consequences that would be incurred if you did not have a needed part.
- Set agreed-upon spare parts stocking and reorder points
This can help you avoid a feast-or-famine scenario where you have excessive spare parts inventory — or not enough. Standardize your methods for determining when and whether to stock a part — and in what quantity. Using consistent criteria to make parts inventory decisions can streamline the process, make it easier to identify priorities, and make communicating decisions easier.
- Improve your supply chain management
Materials providers, shipping partners, and other parties directly impact your spare parts inventory. Though you cannot singlehandedly eliminate supply chain issues, you can take steps to optimize your relationships with your suppliers and shippers. Good two-way communication is essential. Track lead times using a spare parts inventory management software to identify potential slowdowns or bottlenecks.
- Use data to drive parts inventory decisions
Start with usage probabilities and optimize your parts inventory over time. Spare parts inventory management software goes beyond spreadsheets to integrate with other tools, reduce manual data entry, and make tracking easier and more accurate.
- Ensure inventory accuracy
Conduct a cycle count to match your physical parts inventory with your inventory records. Cycle counting is a method designed to fit into your normal operations. A parts inventory software solution makes accurately tracking your inventory easier.
There are multiple inventory accounting methods. A first in, first out (FIFO) strategy is important if your inventory includes any parts or products that have limited shelf lives, such as chemicals or pharmaceutical ingredients. Track all of their expiration dates in parts inventory software to avoid spoilage.
Material management is a storeroom technique for parts inventory management. It governs how organizations plan, organize, and control the flow of materials from purchase to delivery. The mission of any materials management program is to keep the right parts in the right quantity, at the right location and time, with the right level of quality at the lowest possible cost.
- Acquisition – Parts procurement (right parts, right quantity, right quality, lowest total cost)
- Control – Stores
- Movement – Logistics (right place, right time)
Planners generally trigger materials requisitions, determining the specific materials needed. They determine items, quantities, and dates for each work order. Procurement personnel is responsible for ordering exactly what the planner needs from approved vendors. Vendors provide parts that meet prescribed specifications. After delivery, personnel properly handle and control items in the warehouse area until needed in the field. At that point, logistics personnel arrange materials movements to the final destination.
In most organizations, maintenance storeroom personnel complete material movement, which means that Logistics and Stores are the same teams. Stores teams embed in the middle of the material flow, so they can affect every one of the elements of the mission.
Although this method can be costly, spare parts inventories should not be dismissed in favor of reducing industrial costs.
Conduct a Needs Assessment
Before purchasing any parts, pair registered items to specific maintenance activities based on the lead time and consumption data reported by technicians.
Implement a PM Approach
PM is useful for finding the root cause of failures with an option to add excess parts storage to signed-off work orders. A standardized workflow improves the accuracy of inventory counts.
Utilize Effective Inventory Controls
Create a check-out system to recall which parts were stocked or removed on what date while reviewing them periodically for signs of excess or shortage amounts. Distinguish between mission-critical and secondary functions to issue the right quantity of components.
Secure Your Maintenance Stockroom
Better security would promote floor safety where badges are required for entry and employees are trained to pack items into the proper containers.
When following the best practices, a parts management program is a cost-saving strategy to deter downtime and other unexpected incidents.
Other than classifying spares by criticality, it’s equally important to designate their installations by the manufacturer or model. Even on new equipment, spare parts must be linked to an asset type and added to the inventory control system. A bin and slot location should be assigned to each part to consolidate storage areas.
Use a bill of materials to simplify work order generation by making it easier to order spare parts. This will save the maintenance team time waiting for parts to be delivered after a request gets issued. Combine this with CMMS software to measure KPIs and report on asset conditions according to Spare Parts Management processes.
Determine what volume to stock by assessing the lead times for machines in descending priority. Are there other vendors that supply a particular component? Consider revising the holding policy if the cycle count shows a usual line item vs. turnover rate during an audit of different inventory portions.
This includes collecting information on first or last-time buys, repairable spares, and purchase histories, to decide when to set a re-order point or assess the end-of-life status. An example would be checking the warehouse levels weekly to reorder top-up replacements.
SPM provides a structured framework for what parts are stored and selected, followed by how much quantity to hold, relying on the bill of materials and barcode scanning to count their availability in a storeroom.
Parts management brings together asset performance, cost reduction, and risk mitigation into a system designed for maximizing the ROI on every piece of equipment. It works through multiple avenues from consistent service delivery to labor utilization to improve productivity over time.
But if spares are unavailable, then the factory has to scramble to meet its equipment demands, where a shortage could disrupt the maintenance process flow, and a surplus would pile up in the backrooms to depreciate over time. To manage the risk of downtime, they must discard poor-quality parts and eliminate redundant orders to remove any obsolete items.
They’ll need a system that’s fit for purpose, to weigh the probability against the cost of needing a part, and plan what quantity to order when market demand continues to vary. That’s why many enterprises are investing in a parts management system–to determine the optimal inventory levels to hit on each category.
The ideal solution is to run CMMS or EAM software with built-in ERP functionality, to automate the maintenance process flow, for drilling down into inventory logistics where the location and unit cost are clearly labeled. It will make the re-order data accurate on expensive assets that occupy 20% or less of your inventory but take up 80% of the value by lead time.
- Physical planning
- Infrastructure – The condition of the maintenance storeroom facility itself is a fundamental challenge — a storeroom in poor condition risks exposure to the elements, which can degrade the quality of the materials.
- Location – Too much distance between the storeroom and end-users can cause delays, damaging or losing items in transit.
- Accessibility – Based on assessments, as many as half of all maintenance departments have an “open” storeroom plan, where the “honor system” is in effect. Educate your employees on adequate controls and procedures. Above all, put controls in place to handle, manage, and check-out materials properly.
- Physical layout – Optimal materials flow is crucial to the ideal storeroom. The factors of an ideal setup include the ability to move material quickly between areas and the ability to move material effectively within each area.
Visual Management – Providing large visible signage to mark different sections will save time and make the process more efficient. Once a worker has looked up which row and aisle a part is located from the VIN system, markers such as signs and arrows will help guide them to it in the actual storeroom. Labeled maps or diagrams of the floorplan can also be useful designating areas.
The right parts inventory management software handles purchasing and receiving parts, associating parts with assets and PMs, and quickly locating inventory items. It can also integrate with other tools and simplifies tracking. Visibility of spare parts inventory is vital for any organization. Without the proper CMMS system, keeping track of parts and ensuring their availability can be challenging.
Save Time Locating Parts
Access all parts information in a list view, including location, on-hand amount, unit cost and item number. Attach images to part records for easy identification.
Reduce Expedited Shipping Costs
Set up reorder points to track parts you need to order or auto-generate a purchase order when the on-hand amount falls below the threshold.
Streamline Parts Issuing Process
Relate parts to assets and PMs in order to automatically let technicians know which parts are typically used to repair an asset or perform a PM task.
Eliminate Data Entry & Duplication
Use barcodes and QR codes to scan and view part records instantly on a tablet or mobile device. Use parts kitting to issue or return multiple parts with a single item number.
Gain Control over Your Inventory
Require work requestors to submit a materials request for approval before a part is charged out of inventory.
Make Data-Driven Decisions
View and track parts by supplier in a list view. It can show the supplier name, part number, last part cost, last received date and more.
Ensure Necessary Parts are On-Hand
Create purchase orders right from on a list of parts that are due to be reordered based on parts reorder points.
Monitor Parts Ordered
With eMaint’s requisitioning tool, technicians must receive approval of all requests to purchase parts before a purchase order is created.
Keep a Log of PO Receipts
Track parts received and record valuable information, such as packing slip details, required date, item location and more.