Our new CMMS, used in power plant repairs, is leading to warehouse overstocking. Planners make thier best guess and reserve parts or stage parts to meet the anticipated worker needs. As is normal, they miss some items and they stage some items not needed. Our system immediately orders replentishmnet stock to maintain max & min; the workers then return unused parts.

I've heard discussions that say "just throw them away" ain't gonna happen

Would a week delay in restocking help? I'm told the CMMS and the Warehouse folks can't do that.

I could have the workers pick up the parts as needed, but that defeats the whole daily and 3 week planning we do!

sorry if this has been discussed before - couldn't find any details in my searches of the forums. Thanks, Gordon

Which CMMS are you using?
Can the CMMS be programmed to require a review/confirmation of the replenisment orders by the Warehouse Supervisor or Assistant before they get to the buyers?

Thanks for the reply. The system is Avantis, and I stated what was happening wrong. It doesn't exactly reorder - it tells the warehouse folks to do it. They say "once it's gone it's gone" and we "have to reorder....".So your suggestion would work if we had the elusive "better communication". I'll keep you posted as we discuss this.

First those who plan the works must know what to do. That's why planners are sometimes senior craftmen. Otherwise the planners have to consult the supervisors, foremen or workmen and even go to site as necessary to determine the actual scope of work.

Second, on materials replenishment, you could run the replenishment process weekly & have an inventory man to review the report to trigger PRs as required or not.

Materials issued but unused should be returned to store ASAP rather than stored in users' squirrel cages. This is to return the stocks to avoid unnecessary reordering. "Once it's gone, it's gone" is not a teamwork attitude, "it's me & you silo" attitude. This is a typical attitude which needs to be evolved.

Alternatively, you could have interim store squirrel cages for individual work orders but not issued until after used. This procedural control may meet your daily & weekly planning.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Josh,

Josh, thanks for the reply!

Our planners are all journeymen, and they are not overloaded with VALID work; I give them time to go to the site and scope the work. I'd say thier accuracy is about 75% on parts predictions. Part of the error occurs because all our equipment is all unique (no standardization or two major pieces alike) and there are few repeat jobs, and we run at 98% capacity factor so we seldom can get into the machines. I&E says their parts are impossible to predict - hear this everywhere I go.

The situation with parts is difficult enough that the planners can't get all the planning done, because their "work arounds" take a lot of time.

We send very expensive employees to pick up parts so we can avoid hiring inexpensive stores people that could stage parts! Sorta is "us and them" since they are in the accounting dept. I like your suggestion to run the replentishment once a week. We insist parts be returned before the craftspeople can close the work order, and they need to be closed daily, if done, so returning quickly USUALLY happens. Haven't quite figured out how to keep I&C from squirreling parts; they tend to have a drawer full. What really hits us is if a scheduled job has parts checked out and something breaks the schedule work and parts are on "hold" outside the warehouse, and new stuff gets bought before we know we don't need it.

Your suggstion about sqirrel cages is how I handled it in other organizations. We called them "satellite warehouses".

People on this forum come up with some great ideas, so