What root cause of MRO under performance is easily fixable and waiting for your attention?

Most stakeholders in physical asset management and SCM supporting MRO know MRO business processes often run sub-optimally. Spares availability is problematic; MRO inventory turns grow worse year by year as stock grows without improving availability

My experience in MRO has shown me a key weakness in spare parts support is useful identification of spare parts records (MRO material/ item masters in ERP/CMMSs). My observations come from 20 years operating and maintaining industrial systems as a marine engineer officer, and a second career implementing and optimizing SAP systems as a functional consultant

What improves identification of spare part records?

My answer is better rules to consistently identify records and allow deeper comparison for master data governance. International and industry standards are the first place to look for better rules. There are standards for classification and exchange of master data, but those standards are not designed to make it easier for users to find the item needed or enable better item comparison for master data governance

Since the dawn of spare parts records, it’s often been assumed the Manufacturer Part Number (MPN) field was the sole identity of the record. My experience is MPN only based identity standards fail easily and are bad for MRO outcomes

For better results, the short and long (PO Text) descriptions need to be full partners in record identification

The way to bring descriptions into the identification standard is to use templates of identity attributes for all similar items. Populate the templates with standardized values (abbreviations, UoMs) for items and standardized descriptions can be concatenated

Findability is improved for users as they no longer need to guess which attributes are used and in which order to search. MRO catalogue governance is improved as all identity attributes for similar items can be compared. The single point of failure of record comparison by MPN alone is gone

I have designed SMIT (Structured Material Identity Taxonomy) to address the above issues and more. SMIT is delivered complete to cover the MRO universe of possible items but is also enterprise configurable to make it right for your org. Implementing SMIT in the MRO material master administration process is the first step to improved spare part performance. It provides a method to stop further cluttering your MRO catalogue and a tool to attack legacy records in a way that suits your organization

SMIT can be used standalone or configured as identity data quality rules in an MDM/MDG system. SMIT is available for a small one-time fee including implementation and training support making it a low cost, low risk method to begin real improvement in your MRO spares support.

Message me and let’s discuss your MRO challenges

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