How Parts-Inventory Purchasing Practices Can Impact Your Business’ Bottom Line

The cost of maintaining machines, vehicles and other equipment is made even more expensive by spare parts. Spare parts inventories are necessary to maintain the equipment without the hassle of long waits as the part is created and shipped from the factory. Building up the inventory upon purchasing a piece of equipment is very expensive, but worth the costs once production is underway. Unfortunately, some machine owners decide to buy parts that look like factory originals, but are really fakes. This creates several problems.

Low Quality
Spare parts made from the company manufacturer are created to withstand the usual wear and tear of the machine’s operation. Fake parts are created to pass for the original. They are often untested and many resemble the original part in appearance only. Furthermore, many “knock-off” parts come from nations where the rules and regulations are not as stringent as they are in the machine’s nation of origin, leading to shortcuts in crucial manufacturing points. The result is a part that may not only break, but severely damage the equipment and the operator.

Recall Notification
When defects are found in parts, a reputible manufacturer will issue notices or recalls to buyers. Purchasing from a faux spare parts dealers, however, circumvents these safe-guards and you risk missing such notifications. Manufacturers of parts that are later found to be defective also shoulder the responsibility of fixing any damage done to the equipment because of the defective part. The damage done by faux parts dealers is not only your responsibility, but also voids the equipment’s warranty.

Customer Care
Customer care provided by a spare parts dealer can be vital to a company, especially those just beginning their inventory. Dealers of counterfeit spare parts are often difficult, if not impossible to find once the transaction is completed. This leaves the company manager high and dry in the event of an emergency.

Mislabeling
In addition to the added responsibility, lack of customer care, and quality issues, you also run the risk of getting the wrong part altogether. Mislabeling is another problem that is frequent in the faux parts industry, making it all too easy to purchase the wrong part.

There are ways to cut costs when building your spare parts inventory without sacrificing the integrity of your products and the life span of your equipment. Consider the pros and cons carefully before you decide that spare parts are the place that you want to start pinching pennies.