Unlocking business efficiencies through inventory data enrichment

The request

ABL’s materials management team were tasked with enhancing and standardising material masters and enriching existing Bill of Materials (BoM) data within the clients CMMS and creating new BoMs for critical equipment.

Client challenges

• A corporate initiative was driving a data transfer from Maximo to SAP and the client needed complete assurance that their materials data was SAP compliant to assure a successful transition
• Significant duplication of materials existed in the CMMS resulting in overstocking of $19M worth of spare parts that were not required
• Equipment costs in the CMMS were inaccurate, meaning the budget for spares was dramatically different to reality
• Historic spares were attached to equipment and clogged up the system, meaning it was difficult to determine which was the correct spare – resulting in valuable engineering time being wasted
• The maintenance, warehouse and procurement team had an extreme lack of confidence in the CMMS data accuracy and would issue “free text” purchase order requests which were difficult to interoperate and resulted in the wrong spares being ordered
• Spare parts for decommissioned equipment on the plant had BoMs assigned, which resulted in holding unnecessary spares and tying up money unnecessarily
• No central repository for inventory data existed meaning time was wasted searching for data and documentation required to order the correct parts

How we helped

1. Validated every single tag that had a BoM assigned to determine the correct materials
2. Validated the spares that were in the CMMS with the OEMs and Vendors and where obsolescence existed, a replacement part was recommended
3. Created individual item materials that did not exist in Maximo
4. Standardised and enriched material records to be compliant with the International ISO 8000 standard – global standard for data quality and enterprise master data
5. Set min/max stock level recommendations
6. Provided ongoing advice on how to sustain inventory data excellence post project delivery, to avoid a costly intervention in the future by putting processes in place to mitigate the same issues reoccurring
7. Created CMMS load sheets and issued to the client for implementation

The deliverables

• OEM and Vendor Validated BoMs: 1900 unique BoMs validated by the OEM/Vendors delivered in SAP load files
• Material Masters: Standardisation and enrichment of existing and new material master
• Min/Max Stock Levels: Min/max recommendations for the materials within the 1900 BoMs
• Obsolete Replacement Part Recommendations: A list of replacement parts and their associated data points where materials were obsolete
• Processes for Sustaining Master Data Excellence: Consultancy advice for how to sustain inventory data excellence post project delivery

The value we delivered