Why we keep parts for instruments we stopped selling years ago
The economics of stocking a part that ships twice a year.
A part that sells twice a year does not look like good business on a spreadsheet. Shelf space costs money, and a component sitting untouched for six months looks like dead stock to anyone reading inventory reports without context.
We keep those parts anyway, for a simple reason. The client who owns a ten year old thickness gauge did not stop being a client when the manufacturer discontinued the model. They still run daily inspections on it, and a six week wait for an obsolete sensor is not a minor delay to them, it is a line stopped.
The economics work out over a longer view than a single quarter. A client whose old equipment we kept running is the same client who calls us first when it is finally time to replace it, and who tells the next plant manager that we answered the phone when a supplier who only stocks current models would not have.
Parts for discontinued instruments are not a charity line item. They are the reason a twelve year relationship stays a twelve year relationship instead of ending the day a model number goes obsolete.
