Standardizing Your Spare Parts Data with a Materials Cleanse

Some rules are made to be broken. However, when it comes to standardizing your spare parts data, a strong set of manageable rules can uplift your EAM system. In our last post, we explored the topic of spare parts dictionaries. Spare parts dictionaries are a useful gateway to optimizing your data standards or implementing them in the first place. If you’re managing your spare parts data, especially across multiple sites or systems, you may have recognized the importance of having a standard system for entering data into your EAM system. Hopefully this means that you have already undergone the process of standardizing your spare parts data. However, implementing a new standard is no small task, one that can be hindered when dealing with poor quality data that is inaccurate or incomplete.

Standardizing your spare parts

Poor standardization within your EAM system can be costly. Unfortunately, this issue becomes hard to correct when poor data quality makes it difficult to distinguish between “good” and “bad” materials data. Knowing which materials’ names, descriptions, or classifications are the most accurate is key to making these conventions part of a larger standard that can be implemented across all your EAM systems. When you don’t know what kind of materials data in your EAM system is trustworthy, creating reports, reviewing analytics, and making informed decisions about your materials becomes harder. Think about it: how can you assess your data when there are no strong standards to assess it against?

The process of standardizing your spare parts data relies on a foundation of reliably cleansed data. Standardizing your spare parts data enables you to classify parts, create strong naming conventions, and validate existing parts descriptions in a way that is more meaningful. In turn, this can make a positive difference when adhering to international data standards, like ISO 55000 for asset management. Not only can cleansing and standardizing your data improve the efficiency with which it is handled, it also making communicating and collaborating across teams and sites much easier. We can think of standardization as an interpreter that ensures everyone is speaking about spare parts in the same language.

Professionals have standards

The new processes that are a result of your organization’s improved standards can be tricky to implement. What may be even more tricky is undergoing a necessary materials cleanse before those standard processes can even be integrated. However, a materials cleanse can be truly invaluable, and it does more than just improve your data standards. Check out one of our resources below to learn more, or book a demo with us to meet the maintenance and reliability professionals who can help you upgrade your standards.