Control of service parts

Service parts are needed for maintenance of industrial systems as well as f or consumer products. Their logistics has an inherent difficulty common mod els for inventory management are invalid, as the demand process is differen t and demand data scarce. The paper discusses experiences gained in case st udies of practical stock control techniques. New concepts aimed to reduce t he problem of slow moving parts are described, for example: suppliers leasi ng service parts; standardisation of parts for the group of machines in a f actory or over a complete sector of industry a "broker" between suppliers a nd customers who makes the service parts inventories transparent and facili tates pooling of parts.