href="#ubfa222b7-6f1b-55f7-bf99-2db7c7baa9ee">4 and 6 describe the origin and the current state of the parts industry. In short, they describe the crisis, including how it came to be and what shifts in thinking will be needed to fix it.
Chapter 5 provides a series of assessments of all aspects of the storeroom. People new to the operation could start with one of these assessments to better understand the issues.
Chapters 7 and 8 put the warehouse into context within the company. The warehouse is a supplier to maintenance and answers to purchasing or finance. Understanding these linkages is important if you ever want to improve the operation and have the changes be sustainable.
Chapters 9, 11, 12, and 14 move from the corporate offices to the trenches by looking at the storeroom from the point of view of economics, physical layout, processes, and procedures. These chapters include recommendations for organization, improvement, and understanding.
Chapters 10 (Computerization) and 13 (SIC) outline control mechanisms and controls for the inventory. It is particularly true with maintenance inventories that to control the whole you must control the parts.
Chapter 17 gives the reader ways of looking at the data and developing measures to evaluate the qualities of the effort.
Finally, Chapters 15, 16, and 18 focus on specialized issues and opportunities facing the maintenance storeroom.
We’ve come a long way from the first maintenance storerooms. They were stuffed into any space available (even above the compressor room at a company where I once worked). Now, large storerooms are million-dollar investments, many with automated and sophisticated processes — the whole segment is getting more high-level attention. This book strives to fill the gap between the inventory world and the maintenance world. Thank you for reading!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are two big channels of knowledge in my maintenance management consulting career. One major channel is the hundreds of discussions with the thousands of maintenance and storeroom professionals who have attended my classes. I have heard their triumphs and felt their pain. Thank you all for that generous sharing.
The second channel comes from the other consultants who have trained me to look at the world in specific and useful ways.
A big shout out to my Life Cycle Engineering colleagues, particularly Wally Wilson, from whom I have learned a great deal. LCE is one of the giants of the field and I’m very happy to have been associated with them. A shout-out to Terrence O’Hanlon, whose Uptime Elements gives a structure for reliability leadership.
Denny Hydrick, past president of the Association for Facilities Engineering (AFE) and retired maintenance manager at Lockheed, read the manuscript and made many useful suggestions. John from Australia, who remains anonymous, helped me by reading the manuscript and discussing real life parts and inventory issues.
Without Phillip Slater’s support and collaboration, this book would have never occurred in this form. Phillip’s several books on these issues were good guides to the field. Dr. Mark Goldstein, whose roots go back to the early IBM mainframes, has many unique ideas about managing maintenance inventories that I have absorbed by osmosis. Jay Butler shared his understanding of the truck fleet spares needs.
Finally, Mike Brown, President of New Standard Institute, was instrumental in training me on issues involving production and process industry spare parts and letting me present his Inventory Management class.
Finally I would be nowhere without the team at Industrial Press, with Robert Weinstein, my intrepid editor (without whose expertise the book wouldn’t have been so understandable); Janet Romano, the production and art director who makes it all look good and somehow puts up with the images I provide; and, last but not least, Judy Bass the acquisitions editor who saw something in this work and pushed it through several hurdles.
Joel Levitt2016
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joel D. Levitt,CRL, CPMM,Prosci Certified Change Management Practitioner
Mr. Levitt is Director of Reliability Projects for Reliabilityweb.com. Reliabilityweb.com is dedicated to discovering and delivering effective approaches that make maintenance professionals, reliability leaders, and asset managers safer and more successful. Joel Levitt’s roles include senior teacher, course designer, and advisor.
Previously, Mr. Levitt was Director of International Projects for Life Cycle Engineering, a group of reliability engineers and maintenance consultants in a wide variety of industries. He has worked in highly regulated environments such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT). He has also worked in unregulated, union, and non-union environments.
Prior to that, Mr. Levitt was for many years the President of Springfield Resources Company (SRC) as a leading maintenance trainer. He has trained over 17,000 maintenance professionals from 25 countries and has conducted over 550 sessions. Notably, 98% of the participants rated the training very good or excellent.
Prior to his work at SRC, Mr. Levitt was a Senior Consultant at Computer Cost Control Corp. He helped its president design and market computerized maintenance management systems to organizations such as FedEx, United Airlines, JFK Airport, and SuperValu Stores.
He also designed, installed, and serviced a complete automation with rack control, accounting, and inventory control for one of BP’s 30,000-barrel/day oil terminals. He designed railroad fuel security and accounting systems that were adopted as the recommended standard by the Association of American Railroads (AAR). Mr. Levitt also owns and manages rental properties in Philadelphia, Florida, and New Jersey.
Mr. Levitt has written nine maintenance-oriented books, one general business book on meetings, and one book on psychological issues.
CHAPTER 1
WHAT ARE WE REALLY DOING?
MISSION
Have the right part available in time to support the maintenance function while using the least organizational resources.
Major Objectives to Support the Mission
• Provide the parts needed quickly for maintenance and others
• Minimize use of cash
Mini-Objectives to Support the Major Objectives
