Part 1
In order to make large sales, a good spare part inventory system should be secure. A good spare part inventory system should be one that is safe from such threats as hacking. Cyber crime is one of the main challenges facing the world today. Hacked information can be used to hinder sales. What normally happens is that hackers obtain sales strategy information of a business organization and sells to a competing firm. The competitor then uses the information to its advantage to make huge sales. In any case the inventory system for the spare parts will not be secure, low sales will be experienced (Tersine, 2015).
Second, a good spare part inventory system should be reliable. The only way to make an inventory reliable is to make it in a manner that it cannot be deleted. Many organizations lose their sales inventory when they are deleted accidentally. A good way to achieve this is to store the inventory in several places such as different emails. This is because it will not be possible that the inventory is accidentally deleted from all the emails. Reliability in this case also means that the inventory should have correct information with regards to selling of spare parts. A good example of such information is market information (Cachon, 2014).
The third recommendation is that a good spare part inventory system should be accessible. Accessibility in this case does not mean that it should be easy to access by everybody. A good spare parts inventory should only be accessible to authorised people. An inventory system that that is accessed by many people becomes less secure. The main people that should be allowed to access the inventory of spare parts should be those that take part in the sales. What this means is that any individual that does not participate in the sales should be prevented from accessing the information (Tersine, 2015).
Another recommendation is that a good spare part inventory system should be economical in terms of space. A spare part inventory system that occupies a large space will hinder its accessibility. What normally happens is that inventories that occupy large spaces take long to open up when an individual is trying to access them. The consequence of taking long to open is that it leads to time wastage. So as to reduce the space occupied by an inventory, it is important to simplify it by removing unnecessary information. If it is determined that most of the information is important, it will be necessary to buy equipment that accommodates the large inventory (Cachon, 2014).
Part 2
The main way used for spare parts outlet is producer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer. The method of operation for this way is such that wholesalers buy spare parts in bulk from producers. By buying spare parts in bulk, wholesalers help relieve producers with the stress that is associated with storing the spare parts. After buying the spare parts in bulk, wholesalers break down the large quantity into small quantities which they then sell to retailers. What this implies is that retailers buy spare parts in bulk from wholesalers. They however lack the capital required to buy spare parts in bulk from wholesalers. Upon buying the spare parts in bulk from wholesalers, retailers break the large quantities bought into smaller quantities. The retailers then sell the spare parts to single consumers. Most consumers do not buy spare parts in bulk like in the previous chain. The main reason here is that they are not traders (Cachon, 2014).
References
Cachon, G. P., & Fisher, M. (2014). Supply chain inventory management and the value of shared information. Management science, 46(8), 1032-1048.
Tersine, R. J. (2015). Principles of inventory and materials management. Prentice Hall.
