The ABB Parts Fingerprint service captures equipment configurations, audits parts stores, and develops recommendations and replacement strategies to reduce production risk and find cost efficiencies.

The company claims that one customer was even able to avoid an insurance premium increase by demonstrating a higher level of risk mitigation, while another was able to justify new capital investment by identifying parts obsolescence issues that would place production at risk.

ABB said that industry trends such as lean manufacturing, compressed product life cycles and the prevalence of third-party parts suppliers have driven companies to find new ways to maintain required part inventories to sustain production demands.

To help understand how to address these challenges, ABB commissioned a third-party study and found that its customers underestimated their critical spare needs by 60%. Further, many of its customers had no visibility into escalating production risks due to parts inventory deficits.

This led to the development of ABB Parts Fingerprint which can diagnose issues in a customer’s equipment and process performance, help to implement fixes that close these gaps, and help to sustain performance by setting up regular assessments that include remote-enabled services.