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MRO-IO Minute- 20240819 - Best Practices - Notes

By David Agnello posted Fri August 23, 2024 09:47 PM

  

MRO-IO Minute – 20240819

“The faintest/palest ink is better than the strongest memory” – proverb

It’s early on a Monday morning, you are just getting started with your week, going through weekend emails, and preparing for the hurdle race of meetings stretched across your Outlook calendar.  The phone rings, and it’s the Superintendent of one of your primary facilities and the Warehouse Manager, they don’t sound happy.  They are upset that they have stocked out of a key insurance part in the warehouse for a processing line that went down on Saturday.  After a quick check of the ERP change log reveals this item was set to “Do Not Reorder” last year.  A one-word question in frustrated tone is asked, “WHY?”.

This is unfortunately an all-too common occurrence for many inventory control professionals.  One thing is for sure, the answers given at that moment should not be “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember why we made that change”.  Below are two examples of what a user could see in MRO-IO in the above situation, which record would you prefer to be looking at while receiving the above phone call?

MRO-IO with notes
OR...
MRO-IO with no notes

Having an audit trail of the changes made is good for keeping track of what changed, when it changed, and perhaps even who made the change. The one thing it can’t do is tell you why a change is made.  MRO-IO provides a robust notation functionality that retains any notes left by users that can be applied singularly or in bulk as changes are made to give context and rationality as reviews are performed throughout the lifecycle of spare inventory items, which often extends over decades.

It’s important to establish a standard practice with your users to leave a note that provides context of the “why” behind any change.  This can be done using an abbreviated standard that all users can adopt to simplify the notation process during individual review or via bulk update.

Additionally, depending on ERP/ALM system, your MRO-IO connector program may support export of the last note left by the reviewer to that connected system so those notes can be viewable by those in the field who do not use or have access to MRO-IO.

Please reach out to your IBM Customer Success Manager, IBM Services Seller, or IBM Business Partner to discuss best practices to structure your MRO-IO Notes before your phone rings next Monday morning!

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