Increase profitability and reduce risk through effective parts selection and management Corporations recognize that technology can be the key to fueling product design and development. But just as crucial-if not more-to a company's success are the decisions about when, what, and how a technology will be used. Few companies have failed because the right technology was not available; many have failed when a technology was not effectively selected and managed. Parts Selection and Management is a guide to increasing company profitability and reducing the time-to-profit through the efficient management of the process of parts selection and management. Taking an "eyes-on, hands-off" approach to parts selection, this guidebook addresses risk-assessment, decision-making steps, and subsequent management activities. The book covers everything from methodologies for parts selection and management, product requirements and specifications, and manufacturer assessment procedures to ways to track part changes through the supply chain, reliability assessment, and environmental, legislative, and legal issues. Written by a seasoned professional, teacher, and author in the field, the book enables companies to: * Employ effective risk assessment and mitigation techniques * Make an informed company-wide decision about parts selection and management * Choose parts to fit the functionality of the product and other constraints * Maximize system supportability by preparing for parts obsolescence * Improve supply-chain interactions and communications with customers and regulatory agencies to minimize time-to-profit Shedding light on a neglected but essential aspect of product development, Parts Selection and Management will give your organization the tools you need to avoid the risks associated with product use while promoting flexibility, innovation, and creativity in your product development.

New technologies are revolutionising the way manufacturing and supply chain management are implemented. These changes are delivering manufacturing firms the competitive advantage of a highly flexible and responsive supply chain and manufacturing system to ensure that they meet the high expectations of their customers, who, in today's economy, demand absolutely the best service, price, delivery time and product quality.To make e-manufacturing and supply chain technologies effective, integration is needed between various, often disparate systems. To understand why this is such an issue, one needs to understand what the different systems or system components do, their objectives, their specific focus areas and how they interact with other systems. It is also required to understand how these systems evolved to their current state, as the concepts used during the early development of systems and technology tend to remain in place throughout the life-cycle of the systems/technology. This book explores various standards, concepts and techniques used over the years to model systems and hierarchies in order to understand where they fit into the organization and supply chain. It looks at the specific system components and the ways in which they can be designed and graphically depicted for easy understanding by both information technology (IT) and non-IT personnel.Without a good implementation philosophy, very few systems add any real benefit to an organization, and for this reason the ways in which systems are implemented and installation projects managed are also explored and recommendations are made as to possible methods that have proven successful in the past. The human factor and how that impacts on system success are also addressed, as is the motivation for system investment and subsequent benefit measurement processes.Finally, the vendor/user supply/demand within the e-manufacturing domain is explored and a method is put forward that enables the reduction of vendor bias during the vendor selection process.The objective of this book is to provide the reader with a good understanding regarding the four critical factors (business/physical processes, systems supporting the processes, company personnel and company/personal performance measures) that influence the success of any e-manufacturing implementation, and the synchronization required between these factors.· Discover how to implement the flexible and responsive supply chain and manufacturing execution systems required for competitive and customer-focused manufacturing· Build a working knowledge of the latest plant automation, manufacturing execution systems (MES) and supply chain management (SCM) design techniques· Gain a fuller understanding of the four critical factors (business and physical processes, systems supporting the processes, company personnel, performance measurement) that influence the success of any e-manufacturing implementation, and how to evaluate and optimize all four factors

Overview No previous works have focused on the topic of inventory reduction and optimization to the extent that this one does. Spare Parts Inventory Management: A Complete Guide to Sparesology(tm) by Philip Slater covers the whole part's life cycle, from initial purchase to final disposal, and addresses issues throughout, including maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO). The author, Phillip Slater, was described in a recent podcast as "truly one of the leaders in the MRO information segment." Sparesology is a term coined by Slater to describe the discipline of optimizing the physical, financial, and human resource management processes of spare parts inventory management. Sparesology is much more than just inventory optimization. It involves an understanding of the complete "ecosystem," within which the spare parts inventory is managed, and seeks to ensure that all of the factors influencing this management work together to achieve an organization's goals.