Crib crawling is physically inspecting, identifying, and counting the parts in stock (items, SKU, materials) in the storeroom (or warehouse) of a Plant, Manufacturing unit, factory, repair center or any location. Crib crawl is sometimes used interchangeably with plant walkdowns, except that in a crib crawl services the focus is lot more on the count and physical inspection, while a walkdown can be to just identify parts, as well as cover assets, apart from reviewing plant layout against a P&ID to do redline markups of variances.
Why is crib crawl critical?
Often, system data may lack accurate stock information, due to legacy gaps in updating information, migrations, stock transfers, errors in data entry etc. Stock availability information is critical for Maintenance, Supply Chain and Procurement groups, since knowing what they carry and the count of the parts in stock, is essential to make sure the right part is available at the right time. And to avoid overstock situations. So, a crib crawl services enables the organization to create an updated and accurate baseline for the inventory position, so the inventory can be optimized, leading to lower costs and higher plant reliability.
How long does a MRO crib crawl services take?
A crib crawl can be done as a one-time activity to create the new inventory baseline, and this can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, depending on the volume of parts in inventory, the number of storerooms, the accuracy of the existing material master etc. But whatever the duration, we can deploy an optimally sized team to undertake the crib crawl, with a backoffice team located remotely who would assist with the parts research, data analysis and reporting. This ensures the project is lean, fast and accurate.
What factors decide if a crib crawl is to be done?
If you find that maintenance and reliability personnel are not finding required parts, or operations folks are complaining of production downtimes or there is conflicting information from different groups on availability of spares or if you see a lot of dead stock or there are badly organized storerooms – you know that a crib crawl is possibly the best way to get things organized!
Talk to a MRO crib crawl services specialist today!
