Overview

A global inventory reduction expert, Phillip Slater says "Applying lean principles to maintenance storerooms not only enables more efficient operations but also assists in the elimination of excess and unnecessary spares holdings, resulting in higher stock turns and greater availability." Let's start off this subject by defining some terms. Lean (when referring to parts and the warehouse) means having exactly the parts you need and not one item more, nor one item less. Lean also means that when we use the last item and need a new one, the truck pulls up and hands us the exact part we need in the quantity that we need. In this situation, Just in Time and Lean are siblings. This condition is the goal of a lean inventory.

Of course, redesign that eliminates the part usage in the first place is the leanest solution. For the purposes of this discussion we'll say that redesign is not an option, and that we will need the part after all. We'll discuss redesign to achieve leanness in another section.

All kinds of companies work at cutting their maintenance inventories. The question is, "what is the 'right' level of inventory," or "what is the 'Lean' level of inventory".

One of the leading thinkers in the inventory area is Ronald M. Schroder. He discussed two truisms in relation to the stocking policy. The first one was "No amount of inventory reduction can save enough to pay the cost of getting caught short on a highly-critical part." Going...