KIRKS Partners with the City of Detroit to Solve Inventory Challenges

city of detroits smart inventory management

The Problem: Managing Inventory Across the City of Detroit’s Fleet Maintenance Facilities

The City of Detroit’s fleet maintenance facilities faced the common challenges of inventory management:

  • Supply shortages or poorly managed stock led to costly downtime
  • Overstocked parts resulted in wasted resources
  • Time-consuming ordering system and procurement inefficiencies
  • Mechanics struggled with inconsistent stock levels
  • Delays in accessing critical repair parts
  • Complexity in ordering across departments
  • Manual inventory recording made it difficult to maintain compliance and ensure cost-effective purchasing.

The Solution: A Smarter, On-Site Inventory Management System

To address these challenges, the City of Detroit partnered with KIRKS to implement on-site inventory management solutions tailored to the needs of its fleet maintenance operations, including the specific requirements of the Davison Garage, handling city lawn mowing equipment, customer trailers, and vehicle body work, and the Street Maintenance Garage, handling city asphalt pavers, salt spreaders, sweepers, and heavy-duty construction equipment.  

Key Features of the KIRKS On-site Inventory Management Solution:

  • Knowledgeable on-site KIRKS parts specialist oversees inventory management and support staff.
  • Collaboration with mechanics on-site to ensure the right parts are always available.
  • Day and afternoon shift coverage to provide ongoing support and inventory oversight.
  • Access to reliable, up-to-date parts through KIRKS’ extensive product expertise.
  • An open stockroom model that allows for more efficient part retrieval.
  • Continuous stock level monitoring to maintain proper inventory levels and prevent shortages.
  • Real-time inventory tracking provides communication between facilities and departments.

The Results: Efficiency, Cost Savings, and Reliable Inventory Control

With KIRKS’ On-site Inventory Management System in place, Detroit’s fleet maintenance facilities have achieved:

  • Reduced Costs: Eliminating unnecessary spending and price markups.
  • Real-Time Inventory Tracking: Ensuring accurate, up-to-date stock levels.
  • Automated Purchasing: Streamlining procurement and vendor management.
  • Regulatory Compliance: Providing audit-ready reporting and inventory security.
  • Multi-Agency Access: Enabling secure, efficient inventory control across departments.

By modernizing its inventory processes with KIRKS, the City of Detroit has eliminated inefficiencies, reduced costs, and ensured that critical parts are always available when needed—keeping operations running smoothly and reliably.

Why would a municipality choose to work with KIRKS for an on-site inventory management system?

Maintenance and procurement managers value the ease of maintaining proper stock levels, tracking demand in real-time, and integrating inventory seamlessly with their operations and across departments—so their teams get what they need when they need it. We cover in more depth the benefits of an on-site inventory management system here.

“This partnership with Detroit showcases how municipalities can leverage technology to improve efficiency and financial stewardship. We look forward to continuing our support with
procurement and maintenance managers that keep our city moving.” – Mike Kirkman

Your Partner for Parts in Inventory Management

KIRKS has been helping maintenance teams escape the parts trap for over 75 years. We developed our on-site inventory management systems to serve municipalities, manufacturers, and industrial organizations with cutting-edge technology and supply chain expertise.

Contact us to explore KIRKS’ On-site Inventory Management for your facility.