Stores and Lighting Tower/Power Generator Critical Spares

What is a Critical spare?

A critical spare part is a component essential for the continued operation of critical equipment or machinery. Its failure can lead to significant operational disruptions, downtime, and potential safety hazards. Identifying and managing these critical spares is crucial for maintaining operational efficiency and minimising potential losses.

Is the part Critical?

You can follow a flow chart for a part which may deem critical to prevent those long down times.

Few examples:

1. If a customer has damaged the rear light Cluster on a X-ECO – This does cause down time, can’t prevent damage. Our average Accepted repair cost is £100. The light cluster cost less than £100. It can be fixed temporarily with the use of a trailer light board.

So, a rear light cluster wouldn’t necessarily be needed in stores, we can order a cluster from the supplier and repair accordingly.

2. Customer Damages a rear leg support and the unit comes back with the support on top of the unit. Unit is now down as it’s not safe to use, we can’t prevent this damage, the support costs less than £100, no safe temporary fix, it can Poses a danger. This support would be a critical spare part.

We can then break the stock down even further into A, B and C categories.

Sticking with the light Clusters, how frequent are these being damaged, is an order being raised once per day if so, it would be known as a fast-moving part at low cost so ordering in Frequent Larger orders would be best.

Should I hold Stock? Pros and cons

Pros:

Reduced Downtime – the down time is the length of repair.

Minimise External Factors – lead times and transport times don’t affect the down time.

Streamlines PDI inspections - Damage found upon a PDI doesn’t delay the unit going out.

Cons:

Storage Cost – shelves or some form of storage will be needed to make the parts easy to find and free from damage.

Risk of Obsolescence – Some parts may never get used.

Inventory Management – making sure you have stock does take a little planning.

In Summary

We all carrier some form of tyre in our car (spare wheel or inflation kit) that is because a flat tyre can happen at any point in time but not frequently enough, that we carrier all four tyres. We can apply the same rule to the wiper blades, we know there will come a time these need to be replaced but we don’t carrier these with us, as we get a warning when they don’t clear as effectively.

With the above in mind, we can start thinking about our lighting and generator units and how we can prepare our stores with the correct parts.

If you unsure Trime UK can advise on your most common parts.