Having a Well Thought Out Spare Parts Strategy will Save You From Future Frustrations
A well thought out spare parts stocking strategy is key to keeping equipment online and productive. Yet, this simple step is often overlooked resulting in loss revenue and untold frustrations. We have witnessed this angst across each of our market segments, boilers, NGV refueling, compression and natural gas processing equipment. When equipment goes down due to a part failure, often time the entire operation suffers.
We encourage our customers to closely analyze their equipment. Carefully consider the impact on production, quality, safety or the environment should there be a failure. Once you have identified which pieces of equipment are essential to your operation, the next step is to analyze the parts that maybe required to minimize down time.
These parts can be placed into four separate levels according to the criticality of your operation.
LEVEL ONE These are parts that should be kept on-site and thus avoids a catastrophic loss. An example for a boiler operation could include items such as a gas pressure switch. (Please see the list attached that our service department suggests for Level One Boiler Parts)
LEVEL TWO Can be defined as parts that are critical for the equipment but can be replaced within 24 hours. These parts can be sourced from your service provider’s stock. A good example would be spare valves NGV Refueling compressors.
LEVEL THREE Parts that are marginal in criticality and can be supplied in a week or two. They may include parts required for scheduled maintenance such as gaskets sets or valve rebuild kits.
LEVEL FOUR These parts are minor to the functionality of the equipment or parts that, although critical to the functionality of your equipment can be slated for replacement well in advance of doing so as lead times could be as long as a month or more. An example would include the replacement/recertification of ASME coded relief valves within an NGV Refueling facility according to NFPA-52 codes.
These four levels can then be used as a starting point to determine what is the best estimated stocking levels. Let’s consider a boiler system in a hospital. As an example, level one parts may have a supplier lead time of 1-2 days and your facility may have two or more boilers that are critical to the heating of the hospital. In this scenario it would be prudent to have at least 2 critical parts in stock at your facility.
Here is a list what we believe are level one parts for a boiler operation.
Level One Parts List
- Feed water pump (if there isn’t an extra one already built into the surge tank.)
- Complete flame safe guard (could be broken down into parts of the whole system also, i.e., UV scanner, UV amplifier, flame rod, etc.)
- Flame safe guard
- Ignition electrode and cable
- Gas pressure switch
- Low water cut off switch
- Low water cut off probe
- Combustion switch
- Handhole gasket
- Manway gasket
- LWCO gasket
- Mod motor or actuator
- Full fire side and water side gasket kits
Jay Hoar, Our Service Manager, has also stressed the importance of having a complete set of electrical drawings on site.
The ultimate goal is simply to reduce risk by understanding where that risk might be.
Call our Parts or Service Department for assistance at 412-257-8866 with your spare parts stocking strategy.
