IHS Intermat: MRO Inventory Optimization Software and Services

MRO inventory includes the spare parts, materials, chemicals, and supplies which keep plants running, such as valves, seals, pipe, pumps, bearings, motors, lubricants, solvents and much more.  IHS Intermat specializes in the cleansing and enrichment of material master data for MRO, and the dynamic monitoring and adjustment of Order Points, Orders Quantities, and Lead Times.  IHS Intermat provides services and software for inventory optimization, material master data management, and spend analysis. This ensures customers always have the right parts, at the right time, in the right quantity, and at the right price.

       Cleanse, standardize, and enrich material descriptions with the only solution that incorporates both automated conversion software and item-by-item content review by experienced materials analysts. 

       Standard Modifier Dictionary™ (SMD™) – the worldwide standard for describing MRO items, with 2,500 pre-defined formats that serve as foundation for material master standardization.

       Struxure® catalog management software, with integration connectors to all major ERP and EAM systems.

       IHS MRO Inventory Optimizer powered by xIO™, the only industry and commercially proven, web-based solution expressly designed for use with MRO inventories to dynamically monitor and adjust Order Points, Order Quantities, and Lead Times.

       IHS Dolphin Safe Source® and Green Product Selector™ (NEW!!) to easily identify and eliminate costly, unsafe, and redundant chemicals.

       Intermat OptiX™ analyzes the strategies, practices and analytics for the work streams associated with each asset lifecycle phase, delivering a comprehensive assessment and recommendations for complete MRO supply chain management.

Solutions

There is no ‘silver bullet’ for solving the problem of poor item descriptions and unstructured maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) inventory data. It requires proven tools, processes, experience, and domain expertise. For 30 years, IHS Intermat has continually set ourselves apart from less experienced and software-only providers by offering a full range of tools and services to help our clients develop and maintain clean structured item descriptions, and optimize MRO inventories.

Intermat OptiX™ delivers a complete solution for extending supply chain best practices to the sourcing and management of materials, equipment, and supplies for Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO) and other indirect spend. Intermat OptiX focuses on improving your materials management by:

       Improved MRO Supply Chain Management practices to include strategic sourcing.

       Improved Inventory Management practices to include stocking and inventory replenishment protocols.

       Improved warehouse management practices to include how to design and operate multiple stocking locations.

IHS Intermat's MRO Spend Analysis is the only comprehensive solution that offers all of the necessary components to thoroughly and accurately analyze MRO spend and optimize inventory.

IHS Intermat's Standard Modifier Dictionary™ (SMD™) is the most widely used cataloging methodology for industrial MRO items. The SMD is used daily by more than 2,500 industrial facilities in 34 countries for managing vast inventories of MRO parts, materials and supplies.

IHS Intermat’s description standardization services include a combination of data cleansing, standardization and enrichment processes, supported by software tools developed specifically for MRO. All work is done by experienced Materials Analysts with industrial and process manufacturing backgrounds, who understand MRO parts and materials. This proven process, using specialized tools, backed by unparalleled industry knowledge, has been the formula we’ve used to cleanse, standardize and enrich MRO catalogs and material masters for thousands of plants worldwide.

And because our clients have varying requirements, business processes, internal workflows and ERP/EAM/MDM system configurations, IHS Intermat provides flexible and customizable catalog maintenance outsourcing services that include:

       Review and Quality Assurance of new item requests and item changes

       Research and enhancement of current catalog descriptions, including use of our in-house reference data sources

       Review and reporting of potential duplicate items

       Checks for generic equivalents of OEM procured parts

       Documentation and analysis of the catalog workflow

IHS Intermat’s Struxure® is the industry's leading catalog authoring and management tool. Struxure leverages the SMD's parametric catalog item descriptions, allowing users to create, maintain and search for MRO materials and equipment by keywords, category, attributes, or item identifying reference numbers. Struxure and SMD are compatible with leading Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), and Master Data Management (MDM) systems, including SAP® Materials Management (MM) module, SAP Service and Asset Management, SAP MDM, IBM/MRO Software Maximo®, Mincom®, Ventyx Asset Suite (Indus Passport™), Oracle (PeopleSoft®/JDE), Infor/Datastream, AssetPoint/TabWare, and many others.

IHS MRO Inventory Optimizer powered by xIO™ is the only industry and commercially proven, web-based solution expressly designed for use with MRO inventories. With IHS MRO Inventory Optimizer, customers can:

       Dynamically monitor and adjust Order Points, Order Quantities and Lead Times

       Identify items in danger of stock-out - proactively

       Monitor and manage Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Is in a web-architected environment

       Directly upload results to ERP/EAM systems

It provides real-time feedback and control – when to purchase, change order quantities and lead times – with scientific support and prioritized analysis. For the first time, clients can improve plant capacity and equipment availability while simultaneously reducing MRO investment.

NEW!! IHS Dolphin solutions help companies eliminate costly, unsafe, and redundant chemicals. IHS Dolphin Safe Source® and Green Product Selector™ allow organizations to get “leaner and greener” by choosing fewer, less costly, safer, and more environmentally-friendly MRO chemicals. Now, not only can MRO inventory optimization reduce your inventory and costs, but can also improve worker safety and reduce environmental impact.

NEW!! The IHS MRO eCatalog™ is a dynamic web-based electronic catalog for Maintenance, Repair & Operations (MRO) parts and materials. It includes over 4 million records from 1,300+ manufacturers. The IHS MRO eCatalog includes features such as keyword/manufacturer/part number search, parametric search with attribute refinement, ability to compare multiple items side-by-side, view product images, link to catalog pages, and view manufacturer contact information and list pricing. No need to keep hardcopy catalogs or surf the web for product information. The IHS MRO eCatalog has all the information you need in one convenient, structured, objective and easy-to-use tool.