Parts Intelligence
MRO data cleansing for spare parts: one part, one record
The spare-parts record is the only version of a part your company can search, stock, buy or retire. A clean-up fixes the records you have. It only lasts if every new record is right from the start.
What MRO data cleansing covers, and why spare-parts records break
Your spare parts master data is one record per part in the material master: what the part is, who makes it, what it is called, how it is classed, whether it is stocked. Every other part of spare parts management reads from that record. When the record is wrong, the stock level, the price and the search are wrong with it.
Spare-parts records go wrong more than any other material in the master. Not because anyone is careless, but because of how spare parts come into the system:
Created rarely, and in a hurry. A production material is set up in a planned process and used every day, so a mistake shows at once. A spare part is often created during a breakdown and may sit for years before anyone notices its record is wrong.
One part, several identities. The machine builder’s number, the manufacturer’s and your plant’s own. The same part can enter through each door.
Decades of life. Machines run for twenty years or more, while their parts’ makers merge, rename and discontinue.
Several languages. Each plant and shift has its own shorthand for the same part.
An example, with illustrative figures, not measured ones: a mid-size operator with three plants, 40,000 spare-parts records, about 2,000 new ones a year. One hydraulic cylinder sits in its master three times: from the machine builder’s parts list, from a buyer’s order text, and from the German plant. Each plant keeps two. That is six cylinders on the shelves, where two would cover all three plants.
You keep your systems. Your ERP stays the system of record. Partium Agent reads from it and writes back what your team decides.
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One part, one record
Merge the same part. Never merge a different one.
A duplicate is stocked twice, bought at two prices and missed by every search that finds the other record. The hard part is knowing what counts as the same part. Three cases look alike in the catalog:
The same part. Two records, two numbers, one manufacturer part number. A duplicate: merge it, once maintenance has agreed which record survives.
A different part that does the same job. Another maker’s cylinder with the same bore, stroke and mounting. An alternate, judged by form, fit and function: link it, never merge it.
A look-alike. Similar short text, different part: the same bore, a longer stroke. Leave it alone.
Text similarity cannot tell them apart; the manufacturer part number can. Get it wrong and you keep stock under three numbers, or merge the wrong part into a machine.
In Partium Cockpit, this is the Duplicate Monitor:
Finds the same part filed under different article numbers.
Confirms each group by the manufacturer part number.
Every duplicate group lists the article numbers that are one part. Whether it is merged stays your team’s call.
Read more: How to Find Duplicates in the Material Master, One Pass at a Time · Merge Duplicate Material Records Without Scrapping the Last Spare · Form, Fit, Function: The Discipline Behind Approved Alternates
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A name and class anyone can search
Built the same way, every time
A technician types “hydraulic cylinder”. The record says “ZYL HYD” or “Hydraulikzylinder”. The part is in the system, and the search says it is not. The fix is every name built the same way from the part’s class and key attributes, in a fixed order. Without it, the buyer orders by free text.
In Cockpit, Partium Agent does this work. Classification maps every part in your catalog the day you upload it. Every feature in Cockpit starts from that map. Then the names: Uniform Naming builds every part name the same way, so the same part always reads the same. Meanwhile, Material Search:
Finds the part from the words you have, even when the record is messy.
Read more: A Spare Parts Naming Convention Is Five Rules and an Order · Why Keyword Search Misses Spare Parts in the Material Master
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Complete for the next decision
Not every field. The fields that matter next.
“Fill every field” projects stall: most fields never decide anything. Completeness is relative to the decision. To buy the part again you need the manufacturer and part number; to stock it, its criticality and lead time; to replace it, the dimensions that make another part fit. Read them from the datasheet or nameplate rather than typing them in again.
In Cockpit, this is the Data Enhancement Monitor. Targeted Attribute Enrichment fills in the attributes a part record is missing: the ones your next decision needs. For new parts, the monitor:
Reads specs from datasheets and nameplate photos into the record.
Read more: The Hidden Costs of Poor Spare Parts Master Data: Six Key Challenges
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Right at creation
Check every new request before the part goes live
Most duplicates are not old. They arrive one request at a time: a technician cannot find a part, so a new one is requested. Check every request against what exists, and complete it before it goes live. The two numbers the master data team already reports, time to create a material and how often it is right first time, improve at the same gate.
In Cockpit, this is Material Creation:
Checks every request against your master, so a part you already have isn't created twice.
Fills in the attributes the record is missing before the part goes live.
Read more: How to Create a Spare Part in the SAP Material Master So It Is Still Findable a Year Later
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Kept right after the clean-up
Fix the flow, not only the records
A clean-up fixes today’s records, not the flow that makes new ones wrong. Back to the example, figures still illustrative: say the clean-up merges 3,000 duplicates, and one new request in ten is for a part already in the master, with nothing to check it. That is about 200 new duplicates a year: 1,000 in five years, a third of the clean-up back without anyone doing anything wrong. What lasts is a standing view of new duplicates and gaps, not the next project.
In Cockpit, the Duplicate Monitor stays on after the clean-up:
Stops a new record from adding one more.
Your team works through what it finds. The full results table takes corrections inline and in bulk: the AI proposes, your team corrects. And the catalog stays yours. The part only goes into the catalog when your team creates it.
When the S/4HANA move comes
For most companies, this is when MRO data cleansing stops being a someday project: the extract is pulled, the rules are rewritten, and the budget sits in the programme.
A migration moves the records, not the way new ones are made. If creation is not fixed before go-live, the new system inherits the old problem with a fresh start date. In the example, a move four years after the clean-up would carry about 800 new duplicates with it.
So the order matters: find the duplicates in the extract and agree the surviving records with maintenance before the move; make the creation check and naming rule part of the new system; keep the watch running after go-live.
Read more: Spare Parts Master Data Before S/4HANA: Leave, Merge or Complete
Where to start: four steps
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Look at the master today.
Pull an extract and look for records with no manufacturer part number, and for one manufacturer part number under several article numbers.
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Agree who signs a merge.
Maintenance confirms the surviving record when a part is in stock.
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Fix creation first,
before the next clean-up, so the clean-up lasts.
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See it on a catalog.
Book a demo on our demo catalog or a sample of your own. Nothing to prepare.
What do duplicate records and parts bought twice cost your plants? Try it out for yourself in the ROI calculator.
One platform for the part, beside your ERP
Partium Cockpit is software for the teams who look after spare parts: maintenance and procurement. The dashboard shows what needs doing today, and the feature where you do it. For the material master: the Duplicate Monitor, Material Creation, the Data Enhancement Monitor and Material Search.
Partium Agent runs beneath every feature of Cockpit and Find. You work in the product; Agent does the work underneath. Here that means De-Duplication, Uniform Naming, Classification and Targeted Attribute Enrichment.
More on Partium Cockpit and Partium Agent. You buy Partium Cockpit, Partium Find, or both. Partium Agent comes with either and is not sold on its own.
Questions about MRO data cleansing
Do we have to replace our ERP or MDG?
No. Your ERP stays the system of record. Partium draws its data from it and can also write back into it.
See it on a catalog like yours
See it on our demo catalog, or on a sample of your own. There is nothing to prepare.