Sparing Strategy

A leading service provider was looking to optimize its sparing strategy. The enhanced process would need to improve visibility of available spares and maintain service SLAs that were in place.

• Developed framework to classify spares, failure rates, and associated cost
• Developed sparing plan that addressed two types of sparing requirements
  • Material seed stock required to operationalize normal failures
  • Emergency materials needed to address a catastrophic event
• Led model development that optimized quantity, location, and sparing cost
  • Model based on confidence factor of having material when needed
  • Model used MTBF, inventory replenishment times, and SLA data
  • Quantity and stocking location defined based on material criticality
• Defined worst-case configuration to support catastrophic failure events
  • Minimizing the cost of sparing all possible configurations
• Phased implementation used to reduce exposure and minimize cost
• Trained Supply Chain to use sparing model to support quarterly updates

• The client received a usable cost-effective sparing strategy in less than 3 months that also provided visibility to available spare materials throughout the organization.
• The client used the sparing model quarterly to maintain required stocking levels as deployments grew.
• $1M in initial savings was realized by staging sparing locations for plug-in module spares needed to support emergencies to back fill material spares.