Stock control for maintenance stores
A maintenance store fails quietly. Nobody notices the shelf is empty until a machine is down and the fitter is standing in front of an empty bin at 6am, and by then the question is not "where is the bearing" but "how long has this been happening".
No card, no sales call. Set up as maintenance & engineering and the whole system uses these words — parts, tools, work order.
Why the spares store drifts
The store is open to everyone who needs it, which is the point — a fitter who has to find a storeman before they can take a seal is a fitter standing still. But an open store with a sign-out book is a store where the book is only as good as the worst day anyone had.
Then the count drifts. The spreadsheet says fourteen, the shelf has six, and once the two disagree nobody trusts either. Reorder levels stop meaning anything because they are set against a number that is wrong, and the store ends up carrying both stockouts and dead stock at the same time.
Meanwhile the tools go walking. Torque wrenches, thermal cameras, insulation testers — the expensive things with calibration dates on them — end up in somebody's van, and the only record is that they are not on the shelf.
What Nilstock does in a maintenance stores
Issue spares against a work order
A fitter scans their badge, scans the part, taps a quantity and confirms. The movement is written with their name, the work order number and the balance immediately after it. It takes under eight seconds and works with gloves on.
Reorder points that reflect reality
Set a minimum per part per store. Anything at or below it appears on the reorder view and in a digest email before the early shift starts, so purchasing sees it while there is still time to do something about it.
Tools booked out to an engineer
Returnable kit is tracked to a person rather than counted, with a due date and a calibration date. "Who has the 40–200Nm wrench" is one screen, and anything overdue chases itself by email.
Calibration and service dates that surface early
Every asset can carry a calibration or service due date. The compliance view lists what is coming up, so an out-of-cert torque wrench is found before an auditor finds it, not after.
Stocktake without shutting the store
Count a section at a time. Differences post as their own ledger entries against whoever counted, so a correction is visible history rather than a number quietly changing.
All of it is the same engine everyone else gets — see the full feature list.
Questions people in this sector ask
- Do we need to replace our CMMS?
- No. Nilstock is the stores half — issuing, counting, custody and the audit trail. Most CMMS products treat stores as a bolt-on, which is why people end up running the store on a spreadsheet beside them. Movements record a work order reference, so the two reconcile.
- Can fitters use it without a login?
- Yes, and they should. A terminal is paired once by an administrator; after that people identify themselves by scanning a badge, tapping an RFID card, or typing their staff number. Only administrators sign in with a password.
- What about consumables nobody wants to scan — gloves, rags, cable ties?
- You can issue them the same way, or leave them off the system entirely. Our advice is to control what is worth controlling: the parts that stop a machine, and the tools that cost more than a day of somebody looking for them.
- We have three sites. Is that three systems?
- One account, one catalogue, separate balances per site. People can be given access to one site or all of them, and every report can be read per site or across the company.
- How do we get our existing parts list in?
- Upload the spreadsheet. The importer shows exactly what it will create and what it will change before anything is written, and it copes with semicolons, currency symbols, thousands separators and dd/mm/yyyy dates.
Guides worth reading first
Stock control
How to set reorder points that actually prevent stockouts
A reorder point is lead-time usage plus a buffer sized by consequence. The formula, how to get the two inputs honestly, and two worked examples.
Stock control
When a stores spreadsheet stops working (and why it is not the spreadsheet)
Most stores spreadsheets stop being accurate within months, and the cause is not Excel. Four signs you have crossed the line, and what actually fixes it.
Stock control
Cycle counting: how to stop shutting the store for stocktake
The annual stocktake is disruptive and tells you nothing you can act on. Counting a few lines weekly finds the same errors while they are explainable.
Same engine, other sectors
Stop guessing what is in the stores
Fourteen days free. Import your list, pair a tablet, and find out where things actually go. It takes about half an hour to reach a real movement.
Parts counted, tools tracked to a engineer, every movement logged.