Decision Support for Spare Parts Inventory Management

I help asset intensive organizations improve spare parts decision-making by giving their maintenance, stores, procurement, engineering, and finance teams a common framework, practical methods, and direct access to specialist expertise.

Spare parts are not retail inventory. They are operational risk, working capital, maintenance readiness, and decision quality all tied together. That is why generic inventory methods so often fail.

Through SparePartsKnowHow.com, my advisory services, and structured Playbooks, I help organisations build the capability to decide what to stock, how much to hold, which parts are critical, how to reduce excess, and how to govern spare parts decisions with greater consistency.

Most spare parts problems are decision problems

Excess inventory, poor availability, unclear criticality, obsolete stock, and inconsistent stocking decisions usually have the same root cause: people across the organisation are making spare parts decisions without a shared method.

Maintenance sees risk. Procurement sees cost. Stores sees availability. Finance sees working capital. Engineering sees reliability. Each view is legitimate, but without a common framework the result is inconsistency, overstocking, understocking, and recurring debate.

The goal is not simply to train individuals. The goal is to help teams make better, more transparent, and more consistent spare parts decisions.

The bridge to SparePartsKnowHow.com

PhillipSlater.com (this website) explains my advisory work, experience, books, case studies, and ways to work directly with me.

SparePartsKnowHow.com provides the structured Playbooks, tools, articles, videos, templates, and team access options that help organisations build spare parts management capability.

Foundations for Teams For organizations that need a shared language and consistent understanding across maintenance, stores, procurement, finance, and engineering. Explore >>>	Enterprise Access For organizations that need broader access to our Decision Framework, Playbooks, and resources across multiple people, sites, or functions. Explore >>>
Expert Advisory For targeted guidance on specific spare parts decisions, improvement priorities, governance, policy, optimization, or implementation issues. Explore >>>	Playbooks Structured decision support for individuals and teams: Foundations, Operations, and Practitioner. Explore >>>

Proven in asset-intensive organizations worldwide

• Advisor to 500+ companies
• Work across 38 countries
• 9 books authored
• 250+ published articles
• Average inventory reductions delivered 37%
• Experience across oil and gas, manufacturing, mining, steel, petrochemicals, utilities, transport, and pharmaceuticals

Phillip Slater is the world’s leading authority on the storeroom.

Doc Palmer, PE, MBA, CMRP
Author, Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook, Fourth Edition
McGraw Hill, 2019
 
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Need your team to make better spare parts decisions?

Start with a structured conversation about where you are now, what decisions are causing difficulty, and which pathway is the best fit.