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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a fuzzy-rule-based model to classify spare parts inventories considering multiple criteria for better management of maintenance activities to overcome production down situation. Design/methodology/approach – Fuzzy-rule-based approach for multi-criteria decision making is used to classify the spare parts inventories. Total cost is computed for each group considering suitable inventory policies and compared with other existing models. Findings – Fuzzy-rule-based multi-criteria classification model provides better results as compared to aggregate scoring and traditional ABC classification. This model offers the flexibility for inventory management experts to provide their subjective inputs. Practical implications – The web-based model developed in this paper can be implemented in various industries such as manufacturing, chemical plants, and mining, etc., which deal with large number of spares. This method classifies the spares into three categories A, B and C considering multiple criteria and relationships among those criteria. The framework is flexible enough to add additional criteria and to modify fuzzy-rule-base at any point of time by the decision makers. This model can be easily integrated to any customized Enterprise Resource Planning applications. Originality/value – The value of this paper is in applying Fuzzy-rule-based approach for Multi-criteria Inventory Classification of spare parts. This rule-based approach considering multiple criteria is not very common in classification of spare parts inventories. Total cost comparison is made to compare the performance of proposed model with the traditional classifications and the result shows that proposed fuzzy-rule-based classification approach performs better than the traditional ABC and gives almost the same cost as aggregate scoring model. Hence, this method is valid and adds a new value to spare parts classification for better management decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]