5 Best Practices to help you keep your machinery in optimal condition

Every production company knows that effective inventory management is essential for success. Most production companies therefore think carefully about how to get the maximum use of their production capacity, while maintaining optimal stock management.

But has proper consideration been given to the stock of crucial industrial electronics that keeps the production lines running?

Unfortunately, the answer we get is more often 'No, we have not thought about this' than 'Yes, we have this well under control'. It's high time to change this...

In this blog, you can read why inventory management in production environments is essential, what the 5 Best Practices for optimal inventory management are, and how you can use them to manage crucial electronics in your production lines.

What you can expect:

A summary of the 5 Best Practices for optimal inventory management:

#1 Best Practice: Manual processes are outdated: digitize and automate!

One of the biggest barriers to optimal inventory management is the constant reliance on outdated, manual processes.

Especially small businesses still rely on manual processes on paper or in spreadsheets to keep track of inventory. Or they don't even keep their inventory at all. However, it doesn’t only concern small companies: even with medium-sized and large companies, it is not (yet) always perfectly organised.

The advice is: digitize and automate! Every manual process invites a higher margin of error when entering data.

The consequence of not digitizing and automating is that incorrect stock levels are often kept. These incorrect stock data can lead to inefficient production processes, and even unnecessary downtime. Of course, nobody wants that.

How do you apply this Best Practice to electronics inventory management?

While the 'larger' companies have their general inventory management in order, there are still many manual processes in inventory management of industrial electronics and (spare) parts for production lines.

In practice, we often see that as a result, companies have to deal with a less than optimal use of production capacity and unnecessarily (long) downtime. Often just because a component or part turns out to be unavailable or not in stock at a critical moment.

There is software on the market to accurately and automatically map your industrial electronics, and keep an overview.

Do you want to digitize and automate your inventory management for electronics?

#2 Best Practice: Strive for optimal stock levels at all times.

An optimal inventory is one that contains exactly enough raw materials to keep your production line running at full capacity, while at the same time having enough finished products to meet current demand. Where the golden mean lies between these two, differs for every organization.

For example, by following the principle of optimal inventory levels, you can minimize transportation costs, free up (financial) resources, deliver your products on time, and maximize sales revenue. The result? Satisfied customers and a happy Financial Manager.

How do you apply this Best Practice to electronics inventory management?

An optimal stock of the most important (spare) parts for production lines is not that easy to achieve. There are a lot of (electronic) parts in your production lines’ machines. It's not a recipe with ingredients that you can stick to, there are countless parts in it that you won't know when they will break down or when they need to be replaced.

We'll give you two options below:

Mapping crucial (electronic) parts and building up your inventory

One of the possibilities is to list the most important spare parts, and to build up a stock of these items.

You can list crucial spare parts in the following way, looking at different variables:

How often does a malfunction in this part occur
How often can the defect be solved by your own TD – without replacing the part?
How available is the part (worldwide)? Is it an 'obsolete part' or is the part still in production?
Are there future plans for upgrading or adjusting the production line?

You can do this yourself, but also outsource it to UNIS Group. You want to use your own staff as much as possible for what you have hired them for, and UNIS Group is specialized in recognizing, inventorying and evaluating industrial electronics.

Would you rather not build up stock yourself?

Do you want to have as little stock as possible on the shelf? Then building up an external stock is a good option. This means you do not have to use storage space and financial resources, while you do have access to the necessary spare parts.

Is building up an external stock expensive? Not necessarily! For example, you can conclude a spare stock agreement or response contract with UNIS Group. With these services you will limit the risks and you are always assured of a fast response and minimal downtime, without this having a major impact on your available (financial) resources.

Learn more about our spare stock agreement and response contract >>

#3 Best Practice: Keep an eye on inventory and availability in the supply chain here

If something isn't in your warehouse, it doesn't mean you don't have it in stock. Tracking your inventory through the supply chain is very important. The larger companies certainly benefit from accurate real-time stock monitoring, with which the following things can be monitored, among others:

Information on goods still to be received from suppliers;
Information about internal goods spread across multiple warehouses and locations;
Information on the transfer and the outgoing finished goods;
Information about the availability of raw materials.

How do you apply this Best Practice to electronics inventory management?

It is essential to keep an eye on the availability of electronics and (spare) parts. It often happens that a certain part (often electronics) is taken out of production and is ultimately no longer supported by the manufacturer. As a result, the demand will increase, but availability on the market will decrease drastically.

The result? Due to a lack of availability, you no longer have the option to replace the defective part and it is only possible – in the most favourable case – to repair the defective part or have it repaired.

Our software application offers a solution. This gives you real-time insight into the lifespan, availability, price and delivery times of crucial parts. The application also provides you with push information about changes in availability, price and delivery times.

#4 Best Practice: Automation, automation, automation

By automating manual inventory management processes, errors are prevented. Automation also increases insight into processes and maximizes inventory management efficiency. However, this doesn’t mean everything has to be done entirely by robots. There are several (simple) solutions that contribute to automation:

Connections/links with suppliers (EDI);
Use of barcodes;
Solutions for accurate tracking and order picking (RFID);
Automatic systems for reordering critical inventory quantities.

How do you apply this Best Practice to electronics inventory management?

As mentioned before, automation is also important for the management of crucial electronics and (spare) parts. For example, you can automate the following:

Receive notifications when the average service life of parts is approaching being exceeded;
Reorder parts and/or build up stock as soon as a part is replaced;
Receive notifications when a series or part becomes obsolete and is therefore out of production.

The UNIS Group software application is also a perfect solution for the above.

3-in-1 solution for optimal inventory management of spare parts

There is probably room to improve in terms of inventory management and preventing downtime within your production environment. You can (partly) do this yourself, but you can also opt for a cooperation partner. If that’s the case, UNIS Group is happy to be of service to you when it comes to stock management of electronics and (spare) parts for production environments.

Our 3-in-1 'Critical Stock Management' solution is the perfect option for companies who want to minimize downtime through optimal inventory management. In three steps, we create insight and ensure stable stock management:

1. A comprehensive and brand-independent overview of your installed electronics with useful information for purchasing and maintenance.

2. An online dashboard on which you can see the availability and bottlenecks of your installed electronics at a glance. Where are the risks?

3. We keep crucial spare parts in perfect condition for you in stock, and ensure they are shipped directly to you as soon as needed.

#5 Best Practice: Implementing periodic stock checks

With periodic stock checks, inventory can be tracked efficiently and inventory-related problems will be prevented. Counts not only provide accurate inventory data, they also give you insight into the optimisation options. You can also reduce the risk of downtime.

How do you apply this Best Practice to electronics inventory management?

It is also worthwhile for electronics and (spare) parts to do periodic stock checks. Are the stocks still on-point? Is a part excessively reordered or does stock remain gathering dust on the shelf? Valuable information to ensure optimal parts management and minimal downtime.