Case Study – Critical Spares SolutionPublic Water Utility - ACT, Australia

Our client, who provides essential services, had identified a gap in the identification and management of their critical spares.

To address this, they reached out for assistance to identify their critical spares, catalogue these in their Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS) and develop a lean and automated warehousing solution.

The initial scope targeted a high-risk process located at three of their major plants with the view of replicating the approach across all their facilities.

We took the time to holistically understand the operation in relation to statutory requirements, modes, redundancy, risk, failure history and lead times to enable us to design a suitable Failure Modes and Effects Criticality Analysis (FMECA) tool. This was followed by a physical audit to positively identify assets and their attributes such as make, model, size, and type.

Each asset in the system was in turn carefully assessed using the FMECA process to arrive at a list of recommended spares ranked by process criticality. This information was in turn compared against the existing master data in the CMMS to identify what was catalogued and reveal any duplications, omissions, or errors.  

OEM parts lists, drawings, and manuals were sourced to identify and cross-check spare parts against, to ensure the accuracy of master data. A stocktake was also undertaken to understand exactly what spares were physically in existence across the plants.

Lastly, spares inventory levels (max/mins) were established and configured in the CMMS to trigger the auto re-order process.