Managing supersessionSupersession: 1. to take the place of, 2. to cause to be set aside, especially to displace as inferior or outdated |
Most of us never give a moment’s thought to the sheer number of individual parts in a car –which, depending on how you define a part, can be anywhere between 2000 and 15000. Imagine now that any one of those parts could break at any time –some parts have life span of months, others years or even decades.
Additional aftermarket idiosyncrasies:
- Many parts are unique to certain model types or years
- Engineers are constantly improving these parts (faster, cheaper, lighter, more efficient, stronger, etc)
- Traditional forecast and inventory management tools are not well suited to the typically high data volume and high part velocity found in service parts
- Car manufacturers have to supply these parts up to 10 years after the production end of a particular model
The concept of supersession specifically answers the question: if a customer asks for parts to service a 10 year old car, how can I ensure that I deliver the latest (stocked) retro-compatible part to fulfill that order?
Managing supersession
(488.35 KB)
