SPC Results Proprietary Concepts That Improve MRO Success:
- A rational MRO catalogue has only one MRO material / item record for each real-world MRO material/item needed to support current assets.
- It is the job of Data Governance to make the MRO catalogue rational before end users use the catalogue to do their jobs.
- How to think of MRO material item identity in ERP/CMMS systems needs upgrading. Item identity is a compound concept consisting of all item descriptive elements, key identifying specifications, and where appropriate a Manufacturer and Manufacturer Part Number (MPN).
- To be useful MRO item identities must be structured and comparable.
- MRO item identities are formed using a taxonomy of identifying noun classes, with each class having a full set of identifying characteristics. Individual item identities conform to their appropriate noun class identity template.
- To approach a rational MRO catalogue, the identities of similar items (same noun class) need to be structured the same. This enables comparability across all identity attributes.
- Noun classes need to be mutually exclusive. Synonyms need to be mapped so any given item or proposed item can be assigned to only one noun class. (Example: Valve Gate and Valve Isolation can not both be acceptable noun class names, one needs to be a synonym of the other to prevent duplicate records being allowed under different noun classes).
- Each Item Identity class template contains all the identifying characteristics needed to support making the catalogue rational (description elements, key specs, and an MPN field if appropriate).
- Care needs to be taken in defining noun class characteristics to not include excessive or redundant attributes.
- Item matching is done using all attributes in each class. This more rigorous approach to matching supports finding previously undetected duplicates considered unique by prior MPN only matching. All attribute matching also allows for informed removal of indeterminate items.
- SPC Results has developed the Structured Material Identity (SMI) Taxonomy to support the above concepts. Think of the SMI Taxonomy as an accelerator to define the optimal MRO identity structure for your enterprise.