However, balancing a parts inventory can be tricky as managers are unable to tie up cash with parts on the shelf and are fearful of what sits there becoming obsolete.
“Fleets waste lots of time waiting around for parts,” says Terry Livingston, senior director of strategic sales for Meritor aftermarket. “They want uptime – the right parts at the right time. They’re not in the business of managing inventory.”
Fortunately, suppliers are in the inventory management business and, in many cases, will handle this service for their customers.
Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) transfers the burden of having the parts ready to the supplier, leaving fleet managers free to focus on overall uptime and leaving cash in the bank until its needed.
VIPAR’s e-commerce portal brings a form of VMI to fleets of all sizes and locations by linking the fleet to local distributors using real-time information and inventories.
“It allows fleets to reduce their on-hand inventory so they’re not tying up valuable resources on product on the shelf,” says Jim Pennig, vice president of business development for VIPAR. “They’re able to either hop online or fax or call, identify what products they need – more than likely pricing has already been communicated … and through the e-commerce side we are putting together invoicing, capturing the pricing and providing deep reporting back to the individual locations. When they ID the product they need, a drop down window prompts the customer to the local [VIPAR] distributors,” he says. “The next step is either a phone call, or they can actually push a button and that order would go directly to that distributor.”
