How to know when your spare parts are at or below minimum level
There is an easy way to view your spare parts to see when they are at or below minimum level. Hover over the Spares Module tab and find the 'Order Parts' screen under.
From this screen, click on the filter option (funnel) in the right upper corner. You will see under the filter option, there is a dropdown entitled Quantity Status with the options to view ALL, At or Below Minimum, or Below Minimum. Be sure to click apply to view your results.
Have you ever had this happen? You are in an open Dispatch and try to request spares, but the options are grayed out?
Under your individual Area detail options menu, you will notice an option entitled, "Restrict Spares Issues to Default or Secondary Warehouses." When you have this option checked, and you do not have a Default Spares Warehouse Selected, any Dispatch within that Area will be restricted to the default warehouse. This is the problem, because in this case, there is not a default warehouse.
Resolve this issue by un-checking (disabling) this option if you do not utilize Default and Secondary Warehouses.
Sometimes our customers will load in spare parts into L2L with quantity but do not have accurate cost information or load in the spares with $0 so that they can start to manage their spares parts program. This can be due to a number of factors like having a previous system that did not have a good method of updating cost information.
But now once you load in your spare parts to L2L, the part cost is an important part of the overall maintenance process and having accurate cost information applied in the system allows you to know how much you are spending on spares and where you are spending the spares cost. The part cost is also very important in building an accurate cost history and being able to know what your total inventory value is, so it is important to update the cost properly in L2L so that it records the transactions correctly to build the cost history and subsequently the overall inventory value. It might seem simple, just update the Current Cost on the Part Detail screen right? WRONG. If you just update the Current Cost on the Part Detail screen, the system does not create a transaction.
In order to update the part cost correctly after initial import, you will need to go to the Part Orders section of the part detail screen and select the View/Edit Order button for the Initial Import part order:
This will bring you to the Part Order Detail screen for the Initial Import. You will update the cost in the Purchase Price field, and enter in the Order Quantity that is equal to the Quantity Received.
When you save this, the system will create an Inventory Adjustment transaction that will add to the inventory value and will update the Import Cost and Current Cost on the Part Detail Screen:
Once this is completed you can continue the using the Spares Order Parts Screen and Spares Receive Parts Screen to order and receive parts into L2L and the system will update the costs and inventory as designed.
On occasion, customers have reached out to investigate ideas and or best practices on how to best address the "Cycle Counting" of the Spare Parts Inventory. Though you may not see a pre-built feature within the Spares Module for "Cycle Counting", we do have customers who have identified creative solutions that accomplish this by utilizing a couple of L2L tools and modules together.
One excellent method is that MRO Store Room Resources have created a schedule in L2L at a pre-determined frequency they desire, such as a Weekly or Monthly "Cycle Counting Event". You can schedule the occurrence interval to meet your company standard or at a frequency that meets your desired outcome. The system monitors this frequency and launches a "Dispatch Event" assigned to a resource to complete. This gives the team objective evidence that the cycle counting has been performed and allows the team also to identify discrepancies and launch additional "Follow-Ups" or Escalations associated with the Cycle Count Exercise, if necessary. In addition, the team has identified parts by pulling reports or exporting current inventory, then randomizing a pre-determined quantity of parts to cycle count. The parts identified using the Spares Export or Spares Report can be added to the dispatch event to document objective evidence that the cycle counting exercise has been satisfied. If the goal is to "touch" each and every part of your spare inventory, this can be achieved by dividing the current inventory by occurrence interval. This may help in understanding how many parts must be physically counted in order to work through your entire inventory 1 X Annually, etc.
Many customers have also found that creating a "Digital Checklist" comprised of tasks and instructions to complete and satisfy the "Cycle Counting" attached to the Scheduled Event is crucial. Creating and adding a task list of instructions to your "Cycle Count" event schedule will also provide traceable digital evidence that the exercise has been completed. Your L2L digital checklist can also provide automatic escalations based on user responses. You can poka-yoke this process and digital checklist by "Launching Follow-Up" escalations based on responses captured during the cycle count exercise.
While we do not have a pre-built feature within the Spares Module for “Cycle Counting” your spares inventory, we have provided some ideas for how to schedule a cycle count in "Cycle Counting Inventory" in order to adjust your inventory count.
Once you schedule your cycle count, what is the best way to do this so that you are adjusting the inventory in the system and insuring that the FIFO (First In First Out) inventory consumption is adhered to? Follow these simple steps to adjust your inventory:
- Find the part that you want to inventory in the Spares/Inventory Control. Click on the part link to go to the part detail screen.
- To edit the inventory based on your cycle count, click on Edit in the Locations section of the part detail in the location that you are adjusting inventory, if you have multiple locations:
- Update the inventory count for that part in that location, If you increase your inventory count about the amount, the system will self-generate a Part Order on the Part Detail screen in order to help track FIFO inventory consumption, listed as "Auto Generated by the System":
If you decrease your inventory count, the system will decrease the inventory based on FIFO from the part orders in the system:
This will maintain the inventory adjustment for cost and quantity based on FIFO part orders in the system. These part orders can be (1) Initial Import of the part, (2) Part orders and part receipt created by ordering parts that reach the Minimum Stock Level and (3) Auto Generated by System orders due to inventory adjustments.
If you need to adjust the cost of any of the part orders in the system, you should follow the steps outlined in our "Updating Part Cost After Initial Import".
There are several ways to quickly see what Spares parts you have Ordered on any given day. You can export the parts, using desired filters before exporting, and then sort the export by date.
You can also go to: Spares => Order Parts: There you will see an 'Order Status' filter. By selecting 'On Order' only, you will quickly see all the Parts on Order at a glance. You can then export this data if desired.
Go to Spares => Queue: You can go to the Queue and filter to display 'On Order'. The results can then be exported as well.
You can also view the 'Receive Parts' screen within Spares. Click on the the 'Ordered' column to sort by Date {i.e. Date Ordered}. Note that sortable columns also display an arrow. The arrow will point up or down as you sort the column, ascending or descending. Then, guess what? Yep, you got it! You can export these sorted results as well.
Here at L2L, we are always adding new features and enhancements to make our software experience the best it can be for our customers.
We are often asked how to quickly identify Machines and their associated Bills of Material (BOMs). Here's a fast and easy way to do just that.
Go to Spares > Inventory Control > Export
You may want to narrow down your Spares first or you will have a really sizable export to work through. If you have lots and lots of spare parts, you may also opt to export as a csv file rather than xls.
You can then see what Machines are currently associated with which spare parts.