The benefits of spare parts management for your production line

When running a production line, your aims should be enabling enhanced productivity, allowing you to meet and exceed your output targets. There are many things to consider when trying to facilitate this ambition. One of them is spare parts management.

Spare parts management is the practice of ensuring you have the right parts you need in your plant for the moment that you need them. It requires you to have a relationship with your spare parts supplier so that the parts you need are delivered and stored in your plant ahead of time. It also requires organisation, so you have spares ready at the point of breakdown, rather than reacting to issues in your production lines when it’s already too late.

The benefits of spare parts management are countless. It means you can make repairs to your machinery as required, minimising disruption to your production line and leaving output levels uncompromised. Beyond this, it can have a significant impact on efficiency and costs across your production.

This guide details the top advantages that effective spare parts management can bring to your operations.

• Reduced downtime
• Increase productivity
• Better inventory
• Reduced waste
• Limited costs
• Monitor issues in your line

Reduced downtime

The most apparent benefit of managing spare parts in your plant is being able to make faster fixes. With the parts you need already at your disposal, you can minimise the time for repair. This applies to in-house resource you have, who may be able to undertake the repair internally, or external engineers who do not need to source replacement parts before visiting your plant.

By creating the conditions for faster repair, you can reduce downtime in your production line. One broken machine can bring production to a grinding halt in some scenarios, losing you and your staff valuable time. Manufacturers reportedly lose up to £180 billion a year through unplanned downtime, so it is vital businesses do everything they can to avoid it.

By utilising spares management to facilitate faster repairs, you can enjoy decreased downtime, meet production deadlines and lower costs.

Increase productivity

With reduced downtime comes increased productivity. Spare parts management has two roles: it enables you to fix issues quickly when they do happen, and, when used alongside regular maintenance, it can help you to prevent faults before they occur. This means disruption is kept to a minimum in your product lines.

By reducing the risk of disruption, you can empower your staff to work efficiently, processes to run smoothly, and timeframes to be met. It will also prevent the need to reprocess product lines should there be an error or breakdown midway, which saves time and money. With less room for issues, production can happen faster, enabling you to achieve better delivery results.

Better inventory

One of the necessities of robust spare parts management is building an inventory that includes all the parts you need, exactly when you need them. With most breakdowns happening when you least expect it, and rarely at an opportune time, this is apt.

As a general rule, you should have at least one genuine spare for every part of the machinery that makes up your production line. This means that no matter what issue occurs, you have the necessary means to repair it. It will also help you to make timely replacements of parts to minimise breakages in the first place.

Over time, you will begin to develop insight into which parts are needed more frequently and adapt your inventory accordingly. This can help you make your spare parts management more cost-effective, with some suppliers offering discounts for bulk buys or other deals.

By creating an inventory that caters to your plant’s needs through spares management, you can ensure you have access to any part you might need at the exact moment you need it. This is opposed to waiting for the damage to happen before you source the means for repair – resulting in unwanted downtime.

Reduced waste

Alongside the inconvenience of downtime, machine faults can have other implications on your production. When a machine breaks, the risk of contamination to your product lines increases, with fragments from equipment potentially ending up in your products. It can also result in damage, particularly if you are handling delicate goods.

On top of this, a fault in a system may prevent it from doing its role correctly, creating inconsistencies and inaccuracies across product lines. This can result in having to re-run lines or goods being irreparably compromised.

The increased risk of product flaws can result in higher waste levels as you have to throw out ruined batches. Waste has significant cost implications, with replacement supplies needing to be sourced, and environmental consequences because of its contribution to greenhouse gases. If issues aren’t caught, it could also result in low-quality output, resulting in safety problems and reduced customer satisfaction.

By creating an environment of machine maintenance, timely replacement and fast repairs, you can lessen the risk to your product lines.

Limited costs

Every manufacturer endeavours to maintain and reduce costs to operate a profitable business. While buying spare parts may seem like an unwanted additional cost to your plant, it can have a sizeable effect on your finances.

We’ve already touched upon how effective spare parts management can minimise downtime, reduce waste and improve quality, all of which can impact your costs. Downtime results in lost time where your staff could be working, increasing your overheads. Waste brings the need to repurchase supplies and possibly reprocess lines.  Poor quality standards can also heighten the risk of product recalls or customer complaints that harm sales.

Additionally, it can reduce repair costs by empowering your internal employees to undertake fixes themselves. Often, machine or spare parts suppliers will be able to guide you through simple repairs, preventing the need for call-outs to engineers and any time delays – especially if you do not have a repair contract in place.

Finally, spares management can enable maintenance and timely replacement of machine components, meaning you can fix issues before they arise. This limits the continued risk of damage to your machines due to them working ineffectively, leading to more significant problems and more costly repairs in the longer term. Instead, you will have longer-lasting systems, offering a higher return on investment and continued efficiency across lines.

Monitor issues in your line

The act of spare parts management means aligning your inventory to the needs of your machinery. This is required so that you always have at least one replacement part for any potential fault that could happen. However, over time, this could also help you to identify issues in your production line.

If you notice that you repeatedly have to reorder the same part due to the need for frequent replacements, it begs the question, why a repair is so often needed on that machine. While different parts naturally have varying lifespans, they should still be relatively long-lasting if you use genuine parts.

By monitoring the parts you order – and therefore what parts are being used – you can establish patterns in your plant. These can highlight issues in your line. For example, if a machine is being misused – for the wrong types of product or with incompatible equipment, it could increase strain and damage, increasing the need for frequent repair.

Using this data will enable you to improve your production lines, ensuring you have the appropriate parts for your needs, trained staff that know how to operate the line and adequate integration between equipment. If there are issues, it could lead you to the overarching cause and empower you to find suitable solutions. This will lead to a better production line delivering a high standard of product.

In summary

Implementing efficient spare parts management is highly advantageous to every plant. The potential rewards are undeniable when it comes to reducing costs, increasing quality and creating a productive, smooth-running environment for your operations.

It can even help you to finetune production on a broader scale, eliminate issues, and enjoy enhanced results.

We make the process of spare parts management simple. With thousands of parts in stock at any given time and fast dispatch, we can deliver the parts you need quickly. Our parts are also genuine, ensuring compatibility with your machines, and backed by our warranty.