From Excel to DPIM: What Changes for Spare Parts Planners?

MRO or spare parts inventory planning is rarely easy, especially in large industrial settings where tens of thousands or millions of items must be managed across multiple sites, many of them slow-moving or unpredictable.

For many planners, Excel is still the default tool. But while it offers flexibility, it also comes with limits: repetitive calculations, manual parameter updates, inconsistent logic between sites, and a general lack of traceability.

At DataPowa, we’ve worked directly with storeroom planners and maintenance professionals in tens of factories worldwide, and what we’ve seen is clear: once you move from Excel to a smart inventory management solution dedicated to spare parts like DPIM (our Inventory Management solution), the day-to-day work of planners fundamentally shifts. Here’s how.

1. Without a dedicated inventory management system: Excel workflows mean time lost and logic fragmented

Let’s be concrete. Without a dedicated MRO inventory management system like DPIM, planners typically:

• Export usage data from their EPR (for instance in SAP : MB51 for movements, MB52 for inventories, specific transaction for material master, etc.)

• Filter and regroup it manually by item

• Calculate min/max values based on past averages or local rules (that are generally different from site to another)

• Cross-check with maintenance teams (often via email or informal calls)

• Apply changes manually in the ERP (or CMMS...)

• Have no way to simulate impacts (on service level and costs) or track who made which decision, when, and why, since the last stock parameter change might date back years, and the reasoning is long forgotten.

• Can not easily track the benefits of all the efforts they provide by making lots of small daily decisions, and consequently can not share it with their managers in their performance review.

• It’s slow, repetitive, inconsistent and not rewarding.

2. With DPIM: Daily planning is 10x faster, structured, and traceable

With DPIM, planners work in a centralized, web-based interface that connects directly to the ERP/CMMS/EAM (typically SAP). The Excel work is replaced by:

• Automated data extraction and classification (regular, intermittent, lumpy…)

• Smart recommendations for min/max, safety stock, reorder point, …, settings based on each item’s usage profile, lead time, criticality, etc.

• A built-in collaborative workflow: planners, maintenance team, and managers coordinate through an intuitive workflow and validate decisions directly in the system

• Scenario simulation: planners can adjust proposed optimization values and instantly see the impact on service level, cash flow, and order frequency

• Full traceability: every validated decision is logged and auditable

• Planners see the benefit of each decision instantly, with gains automatically tracked at item, storeroom, and site level, making impact visible from day one.

In real terms, what used to take hours per week can now be done in minutes, with a higher level of confidence and alignment across teams.

3. More than automation: better decisions, not just faster ones

The real gain isn’t just speed, it’s quality of decisions. For one of our clients, DPIM is used in more than 60 sites, used by more than 1000 users, manages over 1 million items, and brought more than €30 M in optimization (up to -30% inventory reduction is some sites). The key was not just automated calculations, it was the ability to:

• Detect and revalue idle inventory based on rotation and criticality

• Propose pooling between nearby sites for items with shared usage

• Make these decisions collaboratively with clear justification

In Excel, none of this is possible at scale, or at least not without weeks of work.

4. A platform that speaks the planner’s language

Despite the advanced logic under the hood (Markov-based bootstrapping for intermittent items, criticality-driven safety stocks formulas, etc.), DPIM has been built to be usable by non-technical users.

Everything is structured in a way that mirrors how planners think:

• Portfolio-level dashboards with clear KPIs (e.g. % optimized, classification, total gain, etc.)

• Item-level views with +4-year movement history, service level and cost simulation, and inventory location map

• Smart search and filters by equipment, plant, inventory class, or even part supplier name, etc.

Most of today’s DPIM users aren’t analysts or statisticians, they’re warehouse and maintenance planners. The interface was built for them.

5. What changes, in short?

Let’s summarize what actually changes for planners after DPIM:

Before (Excel)	After (DPIM)
Manual SAP extractions	Automated data sync
No standard logic for parameter sizing	Unified embedded best-practice models
Informal decisions (email, Excel comments)	Collaborative workflow & validation
No traceability	Full decision logs with user/action/date
No simulations	Instant service level & cost impact scenarios
Idle stock not visible	Revaluation module integrated
No visibility across sites	Multi-site pooling logic with KPIs and a dedicated decision making workflow
Fragmented work, heavy files	Web app, usable from browser or tablet

If you're currently relying on Excel to manage MRO/spare parts or slow-moving inventory, and want to explore what a structured approach could change in practice, let’s talk. We’ll be pleased to provide you with a free demo of DPIM.