GVB is the public transport company of Amsterdam. Lanza and GVB are working together to professionalise the inventory control of spare parts. GVB invested in the implementation of an intuitive optimisation tool, training of their staff, and made a start with setting up a continuous improvement cycle.
The need for professionalisation
GVB has been providing public transport in Amsterdam for over 120 years. GVB is responsible for the operation, social safety in and around public transport, and the management and maintenance of both the vehicles and the entire rail infrastructure in the city. GVB continuously strives for the improvement of its services, by training employees and improving performance and processes.
Implementation of Lanza
The number of spares GVB has in its spare parts assortment is large and diverse. For example, the process for parts that are being repaired differs from the process for regular (consumable) spare parts. Lanza is a spare parts inventory optimisation application with analysis, reporting, and integration features. Lanza easily differentiates between all types of product and planning categories and apply different strategies to these categories.
Within each assortment, Lanza classifies GVB’s parts based on price and demand frequency to apply customised inventory strategies. The ultimate goal is to create an optimal balance between working capital, stock availability, and operational costs. Expensive slow movers, for example, require a different approach compared to cheap fast movers.
Ultimately, Lanza efficiently determines optimal reorder points and reorder quantities. GVB prefers to upload these parameters in their ERP system periodically. On top of that, GVB utilises a prebuild and customisable Lanza KPI dashboard to do performance measurements. The dashboard, for example, shows that stock availability has been 98% or higher recently. The dashboard has drill down functions on part level, which simplifies root cause analyses and improvement measures.
Ensure continuous improvement driven by a tactical planner
Ensuring improvements of results requires a continuous improvement cycle. Lanza provided training to GVB to implement a continuous improvement cycle for consumables. The tactical planner uses these acquired skills to calculate inventory control parameters, analyse the performance, and initiate improvement actions when necessary.
