Unitec Faculty and Technology: Spare Parts Inventory Management

This study proposal focuses on spare parts inventory management within a mechanical engineering context. It emphasizes the importance of effective spare parts management for operational efficiency and minimizing losses. The study investigates current practices, including employee interviews and data analysis, to identify areas for improvement. It highlights the significance of predictive and reactive strategies, along with strong analytical skills, for successful management. The proposal also underscores the importance of collaborative teams, outlining strategies for fostering teamwork, clear communication of organizational goals, and employee engagement. The four-step inquiry process is utilized to gather and analyze information. This comprehensive approach aims to provide a practical framework for improving spare parts management within the organization. The study covers various aspects like lead time, inventory, and organizational strategies.

Unitec Faculty and Technology
Spare Parts Inventory Management:
Study Proposal
Student Name:

STUDY PROPOSAL
This study is about spare part management in mechanical industries. This is an essential part of
mechanics and is needed in all medium and big mechanical industries to manage and improve
the outcome of the organization and to avoid unexpected losses. This is a crucial task for the
managers to manage the spare parts segment of an organization. Managerial success is very
much dependent on it. By the help of the spare part management course, it can be learned how
to determine the correct spare parts which are needed to make an inventory. Managers can
use their experience and perceptions to determine these, but the most reliable method is to
implement several strategic methods learned in the course.
Several factors are used to make strategies to manage spare parts segment in an organization.
It is needed to consider some common factors like operating strategy, lead time and inventory
to reduce the disruption of performance (Kunz, Van Wassenhove, McConnell & Hov, 2015),
improve the work efficiency and to lower the carrying cost. This makes the spare part
management successful.
In this study, a brief investigation has been done to understand the current situation of the
organization (Mahamon & Kengpol, 2018). There are some key points of investigating the
situation. Firstly, all the employees on the floor have been interviewed and asked a set of
questions. Then the data has been collected from previous years to understand the actual
causes of the losses. Managing a spare part department can be successful by the proper
investigation and determination.
Some capabilities have to be enhanced and implemented for better spare part management.
Managers should be capable of making good operational strategies to handle the bulk amount
of works. One can take predictive strategy and reactive strategy to manage the work. Facing a
problem and making a strategy to get rid of that is a part of the reactive strategy. The predictive
strategy is to do the needed works to prevent future problems that may arise.
A good analyzation skill is required for this work. The course can help one to have thorough
knowledge about inventory management.

For successful management of spare parts, a collaborative and supportive team is needed.
There are a few things to be considered to create an excellent collaborative team to manage
the inventory. The employees have to be informed about the organizational goals, and they
should be cleared about their responsibilities for the organizations. The members of the team
have to be explained about their functionalities and the expectations of the managers from
them (Siddique, Luong & Shafiq, 2018). This helps to increase work efficiency as a team. To
make an active collaboration in team members, the members should be always encouraged for
their work and be helped in some innovations and creativities. The team members should be
socialized outside the work and should be rewarded for good work (Ronzoni, Ferrara & Grassi,
2015). This helps the team to be more collaborative in work.
In this study, the four-step inquiry process has been used to get information from the subjects.
The steps are understanding the subject, finding the problems, making strategies to solve it,
and evaluating the final result.