E
arlier this year, a school district in Ohio had three of its school buses in its shop bays at a dead stand- still as they all awaited replacement brake parts. The word they received from their supply chain: “Indef-
inite delays.” Supply chain challenges stemming from international
trade policies and labor shortages, rising transportation costs, and a range of economic and global forces affect the price and availability of school bus parts, underscor- ing the importance of proactive inventory management to keep fleets operating safely and efficiently. For school buses, spare parts inventory and the supply chains that support it are different for each district and rely on many ways to get the right parts, to the right peo- ple, with the right tools, at the right time.
Right Part to the Right Person Laura Hill is the general manager for transportation at
Hillsborough County Public Schools in Tampa, Florida. When it comes to her spare parts inventory manage- ment, centrality is key. The school district transports nearly 80,000 students
every day across more than 1,000 square miles and on over 1,100 school buses. She said this requires a balance between efficiency and accessibility when it comes to parts management. “We use a hybrid approach. We maintain a central parts warehouse that serves as our primary inventory hub, while also stocking commonly used parts at our satellite maintenance locations,” she explained. “Our goal is simple: Get the right part to the right technician at the right time. Given the size of our district, having every- thing in one location would create delays, while stocking everything everywhere would be cost-prohibitive.” Right part, right place, at the right time is a recurring theme and response from school bus fleet managers. No matter the approach of a parts management system, no matter how complex, it must deliver and support the technicians who need it. Otherwise, the buses may sit idle, as they did in Ohio. “It’s all about having the right parts when you need them to keep the technician’s productivity high and re- duce the downtime of your buses so that the department has safe and sufficient vehicles to operate successful- ly,” added David Harmon, a fleet manager with the Salt Lake City School District in Utah. “KPIs like parts volume usage tracking are key to having enough specific parts that may be used more often than others to always have enough on hand when needed, and to not have more of a part than needed so not to spend excessively by overstocking.” Sam Corson, bus and auto maintenance manager
for the Newport News Public Schools in Virginia, said his school district facilitates their spare parts with their shops as well as mobile cargo vans. This allows flexibility in managing repairs and maintenance and integrates their inventory management with other vehicles serving the city. While flexibility is advantageous, it requires a bit more coordination with the mobile units and their shop. “We operate a main facility that has a shop and parts
department,” said Corson. “There are two other remote bus lots at each end of the city. We send a tech out to each remote location for a couple of hours first thing in the morning. We have two mobile repair cargo vans stocked with parts for simple repairs that don’t require a lot of disassembly. Topping of fluids, light bulbs, wipers, and such would be the norm for them. All other repairs will require the bus to come to the shop at our main location. Any parts they use will be charged out to the vehicle and transferred from our main inventory and put into the van inventory.”
Right Part at the Right Time Parts inventory management relies heavily on orches-
tration. The precise designated part must be available when it’s needed, or a bus could sit idle awaiting it. Nowadays, such orchestration is commonly conducted with electronic tagging and digital management. Or- chestrating when a part is available upon requisition, is as important as what is available. Salt Lake City’s parts management system implement- ed electronic tagging and use it for other capabilities such as optimal order quantities and monitoring max- imum and minimum quantity levels. This will help optimize parts availability while helping to control the financial outlay for parts so the available spares are as close to just-in-time as they can. “Having an electronic parts tag system in place helps to ensure parts used are always reordered by utilizing a parts barcode system that technicians will scan when charging parts out to their work order,” said Harmon. “This will help easily see what parts are used and need to be ordered daily. This is coming as we get the ability for our techs to enter their work orders electronically. On small parts, we will be setting minimums and maxi- mums, so we know when to restock the parts.” Back in Hillsborough County, Florida, timing relies on
historical data extracted from multiple sources as well as anecdotal information from technicians. It’s a careful synthesis of such data with actual usage. “A lot of it comes down to experience and data,” ex- plained Hill. “We look at usage trends, fleet composition, repair history and technician feedback to determine what needs to be readily available at each location.”
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