Parts Availability Delays Repair
When equipment failed, maintenance diagnosed the issue quickly but spent significant time retrieving parts from central storage, sometimes 50+ meters away. A 5-minute diagnosis followed by a 30-minute parts-retrieval-and-repair sequence.
What Became Visible
MTTR analysis revealed: diagnosis time averaged 8 minutes (good); parts retrieval averaged 25 minutes (waste); actual repair averaged 12 minutes (good). Of 45-minute total MTTR, 25+ minutes were parts-availability waste.
Machine-Level Spares Kitting
Downtime analysis identified the most-frequently-needed spares for each machine. These spares were pre-positioned in tool boxes at each machine location. Diagnosis + repair without parts-retrieval delay.
How it worked: Pre-positioned critical spares eliminated the 25-minute parts-retrieval step, reducing MTTR from 45 to 20 minutes. Actual repair remained 8-12 minutes, but availability was no longer a constraint.
Results
from faster repairs
Part of MTTR is repair; part is logistics. Pre-positioning critical spares eliminates logistics delay and reduces total repair time dramatically.
Operational Reality
This required inventory at machines instead of centralized—a trade-off between inventory cost and downtime cost. The math favored machine-level inventory.