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Service Inventory Overview

Service businesses use the Service Inventory module to manage parts throughout their life cycles and to monitor parts consumption during order fulfillment and field engineer activities. Service Inventory also allows mobile field engineers to manage their trunk inventories using a disconnected client.

Figure 6 shows the flow of goods through a service inventory. At the center of the flow is the service parts life cycle, a closed-loop process. The service parts life cycle consists of the following stages: receiving (good), order placement, picking and shipping, in-transit, customer, receive, test and sort, repair, restock to good, back again to receiving (good), and so on. Incoming goods from the manufacturer arrive at the receiving (good) stage. Goods go out to field engineers during the in-transit and receive stages. Through the field engineers, these goods go to customer sites through an in-transit stage for on-site repairs or replacements. Goods also leave the service parts life cycle during the repair stage, where the goods may be tested, repaired, scrapped, recycled or replaced by the outsource vendor.

Figure 6.  Flow of Goods in Service Inventory

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A materials manager can automate all of these tasks using the Fulfillment or Part Locator Engines. The Replenishment Engine automates the production of orders to restock inventory locations (see Cycle Counting and Replenishment).


 Siebel Field Service Guide 
 Published: 21 April 2003