Service parts management is software that plans, stocks and prices the spare parts for machines that a company has already sold, and handles their warranty claims and repairs. It is used mainly by makers of machines, such as tractors, construction equipment, trucks, lifts and factory machinery. The business of selling parts and service after the machine itself is called the aftermarket. The page on aftermarket services explains it.
Why does a machine maker need special software for this? It may sell a machine once, but then supply its parts for 15 or 20 years. Over that time, the parts and the service can earn more money than the machine itself. But the planning is difficult. A machine maker may stock 100,000 different parts. Most of them sell only a few times a year, at unpredictable times. Yet when a part is missing, a customer's machine stops working.
Consider an Indian maker of backhoe loaders, the digging machines seen at road projects. It has 30,000 machines working across India, and dealers in 200 towns. A dealer in Raipur wants to know how many hydraulic pumps to keep in stock. The software looks at the pumps sold in the past, and at the number of machines working near Raipur, with their age and working hours. Many construction machines now send their working hours over the internet. The software forecasts that the Raipur dealer will need three pumps in the next quarter. It keeps two pumps at the dealer and one at the regional warehouse, 250 km away. It also suggests a price for each part, based on how urgently customers need it and what a copy from another maker would cost.
Warranty is the second job. Say a pump fails after eight months, within its one-year warranty. The dealer files a claim, with photos and the machine's serial number. The software checks that the machine is still under warranty, approves the claim and records the failure. If many pumps from the same batch fail, the maker's engineers can find the cause early.
The software exchanges data with other systems. The parts orders and stock records are kept in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. The larger plan for making and moving all the company's products is made in supply-chain planning. When a technician goes out to repair the machine, field service management tells him which part to take. Airlines face the same problem with aircraft parts, and use aviation MRO software for it.