Serving up efficiency by reducing parts inventory

A leading distributor of OEM repair and maintenance parts for the restaurant and food service industries, Parts Town has grown from a small team of five to a global powerhouse of over 1,000 team members since its founding in 1987. With over $2.3 billion in revenue in 2023, Parts Town has built its success on a mission to reinvent the restaurant equipment parts industry.

By forming strategic partnerships with manufacturers, Parts Town developed an extensive inventory of OEM parts ready for rapid shipping. Their innovative approach, including launching the industry’s first mobile app, earned them a spot on the Inc. 5000 list for 13 consecutive years. However, rapid growth brought new challenges in managing inventory efficiently while maintaining momentum and supporting future expansion.

At a glance

• One of the fastest-growing restaurant parts suppliers in the industry
• Achieved 25% year-over-year (YoY) growth over the past decade
• Launched the industry’s first mobile app for researching and purchasing parts
• Implemented ketteQ's demand and replenishment planning and scenario management solutions
• Integrated ketteQ with Parts Town's legacy ERP system
• Realized a 15% inventory reduction while maintaining high service levels

With an annual growth rate exceeding 25% over the past decade, Parts Town’s rapid expansion created a need for more locations and complex global supply chains. However, this growth exposed the limitations of their internal processes. Manual data extraction for planning was time-consuming and restrictive, and reliance on spreadsheet models couldn’t keep up with the scale.

Parts Town also struggled with traditional Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) calculations and min/max inventory methods, leading to inconsistent results. Without effective trigger-point planning, optimal order recommendations became challenging. The company needed an adaptive planning solution that could integrate its proprietary inventory algorithms with traditional forecasting methods to optimize inventory across hundreds of thousands of parts in multiple locations.