How is spare parts managed in your factory?

1. Except for special spare parts and those with long procurement cycles, efforts should be made to maintain zero inventory for common and standard spare parts. 2. Establish a comprehensive supplier evaluation system as well as a stable network of suppliers. 3. Sign long-term supply agreements with qualified suppliers to ensure the regular and timely delivery of common spare parts. 4. Where possible, standardize the model, brand, and manufacturer of equipment to reduce the variety and specifications of spare parts required. For reference only!

Except for special spare parts, major spare parts, and those with a long procurement cycle, which are stored in inventory for the overhaul of one piece of equipment, common and regular spare parts are reported according to the maintenance plan and stored in the secondary warehouse.

　Warehouse Management Regulations: To make better use of the warehouse’s function in managing materials, to standardize the procedures for material management in the company’s warehouses, and to ensure that all operations in these warehouses are carried out in a scientific, safe, efficient, orderly, and rational manner; to prevent any loss of company assets, and to ensure that the brands, models, specifications, and quality of materials required for various projects meet the specified standards; as well as to avoid delays in the supply of materials to projects and to enable more accurate calculation of the costs associated with each project. This management system is specifically formulated. 1. To prevent the loss of the company’s material assets, all materials and items purchased for engineering projects by the company (such as furniture and decorations needed for prefabricated buildings) must first be stored in the warehouse after being inspected by a designated person before they can be taken from the warehouse. It is prohibited to deliver them directly to the construction site without storing them first. Without the signature of the approver, the company’s finance department has the right to reject the reimbursement request. 2. Categorize all items in the warehouse and maintain ledgers. It can be divided into: hardware, plumbing items; chemicals (paints), aluminum and steel products; sheet (wood) materials and building supplies (including tiles); hand tools, machinery and their accessories; and various daily necessities, protective gear and safety equipment. 3. All items in the warehouse must be arranged in fixed locations according to their properties and types in a standardized manner; labels identifying each item should be placed at those locations whenever possible to facilitate retrieval. 4. The warehouse must maintain categorized inventory books for incoming goods and exit books for goods issued to various projects. All accounts must be recorded on the day they occur; posting accounts the day after is prohibited. 5. All relevant personnel involved in various business transactions with the warehouse must carry out these tasks strictly in accordance with the \"Warehouse Management Procedure.\" It is prohibited for site supervisors to directly request suppliers to purchase materials; this rule does not apply to materials required for projects for which the company has given direct authorization to the purchasing staff (such materials must first be inspected and recorded by the warehouse before they can be issued according to the established procedures). 6. The warehouse undergoes cleaning, organization, and a comprehensive inventory check once per quarter, and the results of these checks (including an explanation of any gains or losses) are submitted to the company. During inventory checks, it is prohibited to merely copy the records without actually counting the items; such perfunctory actions are not allowed. 7. The warehouse keeps records of all mechanical tools and equipment, establishing a management system that requires registration for any tool borrowed. It should be cleaned and organized once a year, with records compiled according to whether it is available, in use, obsolete, or scrapped, and these records submitted to the company. In particular, machinery and equipment that have reached the end of their useful life and are part of the company’s fixed assets must be reported to the company’s finance department in a timely manner for write-off. 8. After each construction project is completed and officially handed over to the owner or Party A for use, the warehouse shall prepare a final settlement statement for the materials used in that project within 7 days and submit it to the company. 9. Ensure proper security measures in the warehouse. Fire-fighting equipment should be placed properly. The warehouse area and a 5-meter radius around it are designated as no-smoking zones; no one is allowed to smoke there. Those who violate this rule will be fined 100 yuan each time. Personnel who are not warehouse managers are prohibited from entering the warehouse without permission. Those who ignore advice are subject to financial penalties. 10. Ensure the proper safety protection of items in the warehouse. Place various materials appropriately based on their properties, to prevent deformation, deterioration, moisture absorption, and other issues. It is necessary to regularly check the performance and condition of chemical substances; any items that have deteriorated and pose a risk should be dealt with promptly and reported to the company. 11. Ensure proper protection of material prices. It is prohibited to intentionally disclose the company’s material base prices and material suppliers to competitors or individuals unrelated to the company. 12. Strictly control the process of material reservation and procurement. The materials clerk must carefully examine the materials to be purchased as submitted by the warehouse, and provide detailed information such as the name, grade, specifications, quantity, color and quality of the required materials, as well as the delivery deadline. If necessary, samples, diagrams, and the names of the material suppliers can also be provided to the purchasing officer, in order to prevent mistakes in purchasing—such as buying the wrong items, buying too much or too little—which could result in losses for the company. 13. Carry out material procurement work diligently. Purchasers should carefully review the requirements specified in the purchase orders (ask the material specialist if anything is unclear), and procure the materials and deliver them to the warehouse on time in strict accordance with those requirements, so as to prevent delays in the project schedule due to the absence of construction materials for extended periods. It is advisable to purchase materials directly from agents whenever possible, as this facilitates return processes and helps reduce the company’s losses. 　The general principle for purchasing materials is to compare different options; the one that offers high-quality materials at a favorable price along with good service wins the bid. 14. Strictly enforce the material acceptance standards. The warehouse keeper must carefully compare the purchase order and the reference samples to thoroughly verify details such as the name, grade, specifications, origin, unit price, quantity, performance, quality, and expiration date of the materials delivered to the warehouse or construction site. Ensure that the materials entering the warehouse meet the requirements. If the materials do not meet the requirements or do not correspond to the specification, acceptance should not be signed, and the situation should be reported to the purchaser promptly. 15. Warehouse staff, material handlers, and purchasers must regularly summarize the issues related to material handling. In cases involving material prices, the situation should be promptly reported to the designer, budget specialist, or the company, in order to prevent the company from submitting a project budget that is significantly lower than market rates, thus causing losses to the company. 16. The persons involved in Articles 12, 13, and 14 must possess a high level of sense of responsibility at work; those who cause serious losses to the company will be held accountable by the company. 17. Warehouse staff should promptly report to the company’s finance department the details of any returns of materials processed by the company, in order to prevent financial losses for the company. 18. The warehouse should properly store the remaining materials from various projects once they are completed, to facilitate subsequent after-sales service.

We supervisors are responsible for determining the approximate quantity; one extra room is used as a spare parts storage area. The specific classification system isn’t yet standardized, and work is still being done to standardize it~~~~

General accessories are managed uniformly by the company, while those that are used urgently or frequently are managed by the workshop

Generally, spare parts management in factories is quite chaotic – people just take as much as they need!

The management of spare parts is a very important task; proper management can help save funds and improve efficiency. Appropriate systems should be established based on the specific circumstances of each organization, to avoid situations where rigid rules hinder efficiency. Measures such as trading old parts for new ones, a zero-inventory system, waste recycling, reward and punishment systems, and the elimination of secondary warehouses can all be employed depending on the situation. Storage, use, and management can be discussed and coordinated to establish a spare parts management system suitable for the organization. To prevent unilateral actions and conflicting attitudes, it is therefore not possible to apply things mechanically.

The spare parts management in our alliance’s factories is in a chaotic state; it needs to be improved!

1 Market-based management of accessories, delegated to others for management； 2 The hardware store is not open at night; mechanics retrieve commonly used parts for emergency replacements ； 3 Trade-in old parts to prevent them from remaining unused; replaceable components do not need to be replaced (the equipment supervisor checks the replaced parts regularly) ； 4 Strengthen the assessment of maintenance quality by machine repair personnel, as well as the economic accounting of maintenance costs in workshops and teams, so as to involve all staff in equipment management and reduce the need for spare parts replacement from the source

Our factory adopts a zero-inventory inventory management system. For supply, items are exchanged through trade-in programs; for medium and low-pressure valves, those repaired by the maintenance workshop are generally used. A quota system is implemented for consumables. Each workshop reports the required spare parts every Monday, which are then purchased centrally by the supply department.