A Guide To Service Parts And Work Order Management

Introduction to Service Parts and Work Order Management

What is service parts and work order management, and why is it crucial for service operations optimization?

For context, companies with high levels of customer satisfaction (external customers as well as the “customers” working inside their organization) improve their reputation when they can minimize downtime while sending out spare parts to take care of unexpected repair jobs.

Such organizations have a keen awareness of the logistics of spare parts management and how it supports their work order management efforts.

Service Parts Management

Service parts management involves managing the inventory of parts that your organization relies on when maintaining and fixing items.

Work Order Management

Work order management, as the phrase suggests, involves managing, automating, and organizing the details that go into work orders for tasks such as routine or preventative maintenance or installations. These management processes play a significant role in optimizing an organization’s operational efficiency.

Service parts and work order management contributes to operational excellence by ensuring that you have the correct number of spare parts in inventory, even amidst bottlenecks or other problems in your supply chain.

It helps with inventory control so that you don’t purchase more parts than you need for the foreseeable future. Excess items may languish on shelves in storage, aging to become obsolete or running past their expiration dates, which is bad for your bottom line. And knowing that you have sufficient parts to meet predictable customer demands for maintenance and repairs allows you to run your organization more efficiently.

Key benefits of implementing an effective service parts and work order management system include:

·      Reduced downtime — You don’t have to wait for missing parts if you successfully manage your inventory and usage of service parts to address urgent field service calls when new work orders come in.

·      Improved service levels — When your systems are running smoothly thanks to improved inventory management and better maintenance management, you’ll be better positioned to please customers waiting for repairs or maintenance.

·     Cost Savings — You save money because you are using your resources more wisely instead of paying higher costs when issues with the supply chain make needed items scarcer and more expensive. Of course, you also save money when you minimize downtime caused by maintenance or repair teams waiting for crucial parts to arrive.

Key Components of an Effective Work Order Management System

A work order management solution helps your team work more effectively. Essential elements of a work order management system include documentation, order tracking, categorization of needed services and parts, scheduling, and dispatch:

Documentation — The work orders you enter into the system result in written documentation, which you’ll need to have on hand to keep costs low (through efficient use of resources) and comply with regulations and pass audits.

The last thing you would want is unnecessary delays to cause you to violate the terms of a service level agreement with customers. Rather than paying SLA penalties, you keep customers happy and loyal thanks to better efficiency handling work orders and managing your service parts.

Order tracking — With accurate details about what parts you have in inventory, you can manage orders more effectively. It’s best to use a dedicated, software-based work order management system to keep track of each work order.

Categorization — The system should facilitate the categorization of work orders, prioritize them, and ensure that workers with relevant experience and knowledge are assigned to the maintenance or repair jobs.

Scheduling — Which maintenance or repair jobs are the most crucial? Using categorization information helps you determine if a task is urgent and directly affects people’s safety until addressed.

Dispatch — Employees need a valid work order so they can dispatch people to the correct location. Your work order management system can help automate the dispatching process, saving time and energy.

To support your requirements to manage your spare parts inventory better and organize maintenance activity, you’ll need to use appropriate technology and software, including applications that run on a desktop in the office, a laptop, or tablet wielded by a worker out on a service call, or in a mobile app that maintenance personnel consult using their smartphones. These enhance your system capabilities by streamlining access to vital information in maintenance work orders.

Best Practices for Inventory Control and Parts Management

Best practices for managing service parts inventory effectively include using modern inventory management techniques supported by dedicated software solutions, including JIT (Just-in-Time) and ABC analysis.

Optimize Your Inventory

Use software to keep track of your service history, so you can better identify which components or parts tend to fail the most often and maintain a sufficient supply. You’ll be paying special attention to low-cost parts that are in highest demand to better accommodate each maintenance work order.

Just-in-Time

Set up a Just-in-Time inventory software system to avoid getting stuck with overstock and prevent running out of stock.

ABC Analysis

You’ll prioritize which service parts are most needed for your demand forecasting efforts. Pay more attention to category A, which are the higher value parts with unexpected levels of demand, so that you won’t get caught off guard. Category C parts have lower value and typically receive less demand. Category B refers to parts that fall between A and C in terms of demand and cost.

Businesses can ensure accurate and efficient parts inventory management by scheduling regular audits and using inventory management software.

Software will help you strategize how to minimize inventory costs while also maximizing the availability of much-needed parts. Consider using a cloud-based solution, so remote teams can access the same information as people in the home office.

Implementing a Successful Work Order Management System

Here are the critical steps to implement a work order management system effectively:

Plan for and research what software you need to replace your paper-based work orders system.

Train your workers to use the new software solution.

Test the system with sample orders to prepare your team for work before going live with your work order management system.

After orders arrive, such as from automated alerts about preventative maintenance or requests from employees, the next step is to use the system to schedule the tasks to complete, defining the scope and scale of the work.

Organizations prepare for and overcome challenges during implementation by ensuring current workers get sufficient training and coaching and onboarding new team members by including instruction in using the work order management system.

Common implementation challenges include not knowing how to prioritize work orders correctly and failing to consolidate information. Establish an information hub to be a central repository of key information about inventory as well as maintenance and repair tasks.

For greater accountability, evaluate the system’s effectiveness by establishing key performance indicators (KPIs), which will indicate the speed of response times, statistics on completion rates, and insight into customer satisfaction (or displeasure with the work facilitated by the system).

Future Trends in Service Parts & Work Order Management

Looking forward, there are emerging trends in work order management and service parts logistics to keep in mind, including integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning, which ketteQ offers in its software solutions.

Advanced automation helps your team work more efficiently, such as setting up automated alerts for preventative maintenance work and ordering parts to top off your inventory levels without needing people to check what you have in storage manually. Data analytics fuel this crucial task.

Above all, adopt a customer-centric mindset to guide how you order and organize your service parts inventory and prioritize each work request.

These trends impact the future of maintenance operations by enabling you to deliver maintenance tasks more efficiently according to urgency (and safety requirements). You also avoid problems such as SLA fees caused by late repair jobs, which will help improve customer satisfaction levels.

Prudent owners and managers will invest more in software, technology, and training to get the most value from their service parts planning and management system.

Contact ketteQ for Help Implementing Solutions for Work Order Management Today

When you implement a solution for service parts and work order management, you drive operational excellence by ordering service parts more efficiently (such as by using ABC analysis and Just-in-Time techniques) and prioritizing which service calls and components are the most urgently needed now.

You can prepare for the future of work order management today. Future-proofing includes installing a work order management solution and taking advantage of modern service and parts delivery solutions, such as those provided by ketteQ. We’re standing by to help you adopt the right technology and software for your organization and will help you improve your processes for order management.

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