Spare Parts Forecasting: How To Manage Your Stock More Effectively

Struggling with spare parts? You’re not alone

Anticipating demand to know what parts should be in your inventory can feel like an impossible task. The last thing you want is a stockout, followed by a struggle to get hold of the parts you need. It’s why many companies choose to err on the side of caution and overstock. But this only leads to more capital expenditure, increased storage costs, and reduced cash flow.

Poor parts planning causes more chaos than you think

Failure to anticipate demand can have significant knock-on effects. For example:

• Lack of prioritisation: not knowing which parts are critical or in high demand. 
• Unable to perform first-time fixes: which extends equipment downtime.
• Long lead times: difficulty securing spare parts leads to further delays.
• Unhappy operators: broken equipment means people can’t do their jobs.
• High risk: there may be compliance, health and safety implications.

Each one of these comes with an associated cost, and industry research indicates over half of organisations feel the impact of inventory-related inefficiencies.

The hidden costs of guesswork and disorganisation

On average, businesses spend 25-35% of their budget on inventory costs. This figure is instantly reduced by accurate forecasting, but accessing quality data can be harder than you think.

Most businesses juggle multiple systems, and two-fifths still manually track their inventory using spreadsheets. Disconnected data sets put you in a difficult position, because the information is always out-of-date, engineers can’t see what spare parts are in stock, communication becomes poor, and ultimately, it impacts productivity and revenue.

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What is spare parts forecasting, and why does it matter now?

Spare parts forecasting is a bit like an insurance policy because it gives you a Plan B. Traditionally, forecasting is based on historical data. But what happened in the past doesn’t necessarily indicate what is likely to happen in the future. 

Thankfully, technology advances have now made it simpler to access real-time insights. Sensors can monitor equipment in real-time to provide accurate status updates, alerts to failing components, and allow machinery to be serviced based on usage, rather than time.

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Why spare parts management is so hard to get right

Two words: data accuracy

When you forecast based on information that isn’t up-to-date, is incomplete, or poorly structured, you can’t get spare parts management right, because you’re forever fighting forces that feel outside your control.

Demand is unpredictable - especially for critical parts

A study by Deloitte shows half of spare part orders are marked as an emergency. Even with the best of intentions, you’re likely to hit busy periods that don’t follow historic trends or supply chain issues that cause delays.

Manual tools don’t offer real visibility or control

When you use spreadsheets to track spare parts management, information is only accurate for a split second – the moment an engineer picks a part off the shelf, your data is out-of-date. 

While manual entry into digital systems is fraught with danger. Let’s reconsider our forklift with thousands of spare parts. The likelihood is they’re not all from the same supplier, and every supplier will use different naming conventions, codes, and abbreviations. A single wrong keystroke kills data accuracy.

Disconnected teams = duplicated effort, lost stock, missed fixes

About a third of field work needs to be redone due to poor communication. Every day, engineers are sent to jobs, but an inaccurate work order means they don’t have the right parts in the van. 

And it’s not just disconnected teams, but disconnected systems too. Nearly two-fifths of engineers can’t access the information they need in the field, with the biggest culprit being integration issues between inventory, scheduling, and CRM systems. 

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The risks of getting it wrong: what’s at stake

Depending on the industry you work in, equipment failure can have devastating consequences. For example, we have customers in healthcare, catering, and aviation. If they experience equipment failure, it can put people’s health at risk, shut down operations completely, or cause travel chaos.

Costly downtime and missed SLAs

On average, businesses experience 800+ hours of equipment downtime per year at a cost of £205 per hour in lost productivity alone. Plus, there’s:

• Unhappy operators: because you’ve failed to perform your job.
• Financial penalties: such as fines for non-compliance and contractual compensation.
• Reputational damage: since failure to meet SLAs erodes trust.

Overstocking ties up cash and space

It might be tempting to stock up, ‘just in case’, but it places a big financial strain on the business:

• More capital expenditure: money becomes locked in your inventory.
• Reduced cash flow: there’s less money to invest in other areas.
• Increased storage costs: more stock needs more space, utilities, security, and labour.

Engineers arriving without the right parts

The bottom 30% of service-related companies have first-time fix rates (FTFR) of 63% or less. And the #1 reason for this is parts unavailability, which could be due to:

• Asset management: lack of visibility of historic servicing and previous issues.
• Job management: inaccuracies can lead to guess work and improperly stocked vans.
• Inventory management: out-of-date information on spare parts availability.

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What good parts management looks like – smarter parts forecasting in action

In an ideal world, you would always have access to the right information to be able to send the right engineer with the right skills and the right parts to each job. As well as streamlining the process of managing your inventory, automating replenishment, and tracking parts for smooth maintenance operations.

You know what’s needed, where, and when

With accurate information, engineers don’t turn up blind to a job. They know what the job entails, can see the full asset history, and have access to the parts they need to complete a first-time fix, before moving on to the next job. 

Field teams have what they need before they leave

Heading to a maintenance job with the right parts in the van means jobs can be completed faster. And if an engineer is called to an emergency, they have up-to-date inventory information to be able to order the parts they need.

Stock is lean, accurate, and under control

Visibility of your inventory across multiple depots, gives your engineers a unified view of stock levels to help locate parts quickly when needed. While automated stock replenishment helps you to maintain optimal inventory levels.

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5 ways Service Geeni helps you forecast and manage parts better

Service Geeni helps customers to manage 160k assets and complete 620k jobs per year, because our spare parts management runs like a smooth, well‐oiled machine.

1. Real-time stock visibility across sites, vans, and warehouses

Access Service Geeni’s ‘Parts & Stock’ module on desktop or mobile, to allow you and your field engineers to immediately see what parts are available across multiple depots and keep vans fully stocked at all times. 

2. Automated reorder alerts based on actual usage

Say goodbye to spare parts forecasting based on historic data. Service Geeni helps you optimise forecasting, automate restocking, manage inventory levels, and avoid delays due to missing parts.

3. Parts linked to specific jobs, assets, and service history

Keep every part accounted for with serial number tracking and warranty monitoring, to enhance accountability and manage parts’ life cycles, while ensuring quality control and longevity. 

4. Smarter categorisation: critical vs consumable

Identify critical and high-demand parts, so they can be prioritised within your inventory. Real-time tracking allows engineers to see exactly what inventory is available, and field-based ordering allows them access to whatever they need.

5. One system that connects your whole team

Bring your assets, data, and engineers together in one platform with Service Geeni. Now, you have total visibility and control to boost FTFR and deliver amazing service operations.

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What to fix first: high-impact improvements you can make now

As the saying goes, ‘garbage in, garbage out’. So the first area to focus on is improving your data quality to boost its accuracy.

Clean up your parts catalogue and remove duplicates

Yes, it’s going to take time to correct data, fix errors, and reconcile conflicting information. But it’s washing your data sets of bad information that impact your ability to forecast and operate effectively.

Identify your critical spares and common fast movers

Next, you want to identify your high priority items – spare parts that are either critical because they have the potential to cause catastrophic equipment failure, or parts that are frequently used and go out-of-stock quicker.

Standardise how parts are issued, tracked, and returned

Consistency improves communication between different functions, because they are all looking at and recording data in the same way. And you can see how to continuously improve, for example, because you know common reasons for warranty fixes.

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From reactive to ready: why now’s the time to level up your spare parts process

When field service engineers spend just 25% of their time on engineering tasks, now is the time to look at how you improve processes, like spare parts forecasting and management, to maintain or fix more equipment in the time available.

Small changes lead to big results

You don’t need to rip and replace what you already have, just look for the quick wins. For example:

• Smarter route planning & scheduling: results in 23% less travel time, so engineers can complete 1 extra job per day.
• Digital work orders, scheduling, and inventory management: reduces the amount of paperwork engineers are required to do and eliminates human error. 
• Mobile app for engineers: enable real-time communication, improve response time and resource allocation, and enable better co-ordination of your field operations.

It’s not just about inventory - it’s about better service

Getting the right engineer to the right place at the right time with the right parts is a big battle to win. But victory isn’t about optimising your inventory. The outcome is about boosting field engineer efficiency, so you can stay ahead of the competition, secure long-term growth, and maintain profitability.

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Ready to take control of your spare parts forecasting?

With Service Geeni, you will stay one step ahead with fewer stockouts, faster fixes, and complete visibility over your parts. To see our platform in action and discover what it can do for your business, book a free demo today.