Benefits

Applied correctly, Reliability-Centred Spares yields the following benefits:

• Unnecessary capital and insurance spares are avoided, freeing up funds and storage space
• The avoidance of "slash and burn" inventory reductions and the corresponding risks to production downtime in the future
• Reductions in the cost of unscheduled downtime due to the non-availability of critical spares
• A means to evaluate vendor stocking costs versus holding stock locally.

Through-life Costing

RCS uses through-life costing to ensure that every pound invested in spare parts is spent where it will do the most good. RCS answers the question of whether money should be invested in spares in order to reduce downtime costs in the future.

All parties (including accountants!) relate to RCS as it determines spare part levels without relying on gut feel or subjective judgment.

Insurance Spares

Substantial savings can be made by applying RCS to expensive, slow-moving critical spares. Vendor stockholding schemes may also be evaluated against the alternative of holding stock locally.

The History

Traditionally, stock levels were determined by a mixture of gut feel, manufacturer's recommendations and subjective judgments of service level. None of these addresses the fundamental question - "is it worth buying a spare part, and if so, how many?"

Application

RCS can be applied at any time in an asset's life-cycle (ie before buying any spare parts or when an asset has been in service for some time).

It can be applied selectively to the spares inventory by using the pareto principle since a small number of items are usually responsible for a large proportion of inventory value and/or could incur large production losses in the event of a stockout.

The Financial Case

Organisations often experience stockouts that have a profound effect on output or customer service. The justification for holding stock is usually financial since stockouts rarely affect safety/environmental integrity.

For more information on RCS, please view/download our eBrochures.