Spare Parts Optimisation
Spare parts optimisation is the practice of setting stock levels for maintenance spares to balance the cost of holding inventory against the cost and risk of stockouts. It uses criticality, lead time and failure data to decide what to hold and how much.
Holding too many spares ties up capital and risks obsolescence; holding too few risks long downtime when a critical part is unavailable. Optimisation classifies parts by their criticality and failure pattern, factors in supplier lead times, and sets reorder points and quantities accordingly — stocking insurance spares for high-impact, hard-to-source items while running fast movers on lean reorder. It is closely tied to MTTR, since parts availability often dominates repair time.
Related terms
Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) · Asset Criticality · Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)