Control of service parts

Service parts are needed for maintenance of industrial systems as well as for consumer products. Their logistics has an inherent difficulty: common models for inventory management are invalid, as the demand process is different and demand data are scarce. The paper discusses experiences gained in case studies of practical stock control techniques. New concepts aimed to reduce the problem of slow moving parts are described, for example: suppliers leasing service parts; standardisation of parts for the group of machines in a factory or over a complete sector of industry; a ‘broker’ between suppliers and customers who makes the service parts inventories transparent and facilitates pooling of parts.