MRO Stockroom Management

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Key Questions

The following key questions are answered in this module:

What does MRO stand for?
MRO is a commonly used acronym that refers to maintenance, repair, and operations inventory.

What is a critical spare?
A critical spare is a part that is required to ensure minimal downtime for a critical system.

What does an appropriate stock level depend on?
The appropriate stock level for each part depends on the lead time and historical usage rates.

How often should you inventory your parts and supplies stock?
A good MRO management system will rely on continuous monitoring using stockroom software.

What does kitting involve and why is it used?
Kitting involves grouping the parts and tools needed for a job ahead of time in a designated staging area, which ensures all parts are available and eliminates the time technicians spend looking for parts.

Sample Video Transcript

Below is a transcript of the video sample provided for this module:

Maintaining an accurate inventory is critical for ensuring parts are available while minimizing the cost of that inventory. Also, poor inventory accuracy will cause technicians to maintain extra stock in their possession outside of the stockroom. If the actual inventory is lower than what is documented, it is likely that the item will be out-of-stock. If the actual inventory is higher, parts will be reordered too soon. So, how often should you inventory your parts and supplies stock? A good MRO management system will rely on continuous monitoring using stockroom software. Each item that enters or leaves the stockroom must be accounted for. This is the responsibility of everyone, not just those who manage the stockroom. If you take part, make sure that it has been properly removed from inventory. Manually entering part and transaction information takes time, and there are many opportunities for errors. For speed and accuracy, a technology, such as barcodes, should be used for inventory management. With barcodes, transactions are recorded automatically, and the inventory is updated in real-time. Each item should have a unique barcode label that allows real-time viewing of related data with a single scan. Barcodes are typically scanned with wand or laser scanners. Wand scanners resemble a pen with the barcode reader in its tip. To use a wand scanner pass the tip over the barcode at a steady speed. Laser scanners project a straight-line beam across the entire barcode. Both types convert the optical signals to digital signals in a computer.