How are parts departments dealing with their obsolete parts?

[DjSec]

The ecommerce conversation is valid but the real fix starts before the part ever becomes obsolete.

At my last store we ran a 60 day aging report every Monday. The parts manager and I sat down for 30 minutes and flagged anything that had not moved. That habit alone kept our obsolescence number from getting out of hand.

The bigger issue I saw at most stores was receiving. Parts would come in, get shelved wrong, and just disappear from the system mentally. Nobody was looking at open orders older than 30 days. We changed that and made it a weekly review too.

Return to vendor is always the first play. Most OEMs let you send back parts within 90 days and you need someone whose job it is to watch that clock. If you miss the window you are stuck selling at a loss or waiting for eBay.

The dealers I saw actually reduce their obsolete dollar amount all had one thing in common. They made it a weekly conversation with the fixed ops director in the room. Once leadership is watching the number it moves.

I keep notes from a few processes that worked well. More detail in my profile if it helps.

Your describing a process problem that software could probably automate.

The common themes seem to be:

• Open order aging reviews
• Tracking parts against active ROs
• Monitoring OEM return windows
• Flagging declined repairs before parts hit inventory
• Escalating aging inventory before it becomes obsolete

You could write a script that continuously monitors these events and creates a daily action list automatically.

For example, if a repair is declined, the system immediately identifies any associated parts, tracks return deadlines, and alerts the parts manager before the inventory becomes obsolete.