MRO Spare Parts Management and Inventory Optimization

In this chapter, considering the importance of spare parts inventory management in the equipment life cycle, the excellence models in spare parts supply chain management are reviewed, and MRO-MMM framework based on the MMM maintenance excellence model will be presented in eight steps. In this comprehensive framework, all necessary actions are considered in terms of maintenance excellence, improvement, and optimization spare parts management. The steps include compiling strategies, spare parts management policies, and related indicators; determining criticality, classification, and spare parts data management; data and procedure preparation for analysis of inventory management; optimization of inventory management system; supplier management; integrity of automation and information system; continuous improvement; and risk based and smarting inventory management. This framework has been used in various industries and proved that the implementation of the MRO-MMM framework will optimize and significantly improve spare parts management.

RESSEARCH OF VARIANTS FOR ORGANIZING THE SUPPLY CHAIN OF AVIONIC EQUIPMENT TO MAINTAIN THE SERVICEABILITY OF AVIONICS OBJECTS

The presented study deals with the organization of supply chains for spare serviceable avionics equipment from the perspective of decision makers, heads of instrument-making enterprises. An extremely important issue is the determination of key parameters of avionics spares objects. On the basis of the conducted research, the element base of the serviceable avionics equipment facilities and conditions of operation, recovery of serviceability are considered. Due to the complexity of approaches to avionics objects, the article provides a fixation of key parameters, defines the distinctive features of exactly the avionics spare serviceable avionics equipment, which will determine new requirements and conditions of building the future supply chain. As a result of the conducted research, the article presents a classification of methods for calculating serviceable avionics equipment, based also on the theory of recovery processes. On the basis of the performed system approach to the objects of avionics inventory and spare parts management, examples of supply chain organization variants are given. The presented research is of practical significance both when designing a new chain of supply of spares, and when modernizing the existing supply chains for spare serviceable avionics equipment.

The Demand Supply Steady-State Process-Based Multi-Level Spare Parts Optimization

Spare parts are one of the important components of the equipment comprehensive support system. Spare parts management plays a decisive role in achieving the desired availability with the minimum cost. With the equipment complexity increasing, the price of spare parts has risen sharply. The traditional spare parts management makes the contradiction between fund shortage and spare parts shortage increasingly prominent. Based on the analysis of the multi-echelon and multi-indenture spare parts support model VARI-METRIC (vary multi-echelon technology for recoverable item control, VARI-METRIC), which is widely used by troops and enterprises in various countries, the model is mainly used in high system availability scenarios. However, in the case of low equipment system availability, the accuracy and cost of model inventory prediction are not ideal. This paper proposed the multi-level spare parts optimization model, which is based on the demand-supply steady-state process. It is an analytical model, which is used to solve the low accuracy problem of the VARI-METRIC model in the low equipment system availability. The analytical model is based on the multi-level spare parts support process. The article deduces methods for solving demand rate, demand–supply rate, equipment system availability, and support system availability. The marginal analysis method is used in the model to analyze the spare parts inventory allocation strategy’s current based cost and availability optimal value. Finally, a simulation model is established to evaluate and verify the model. Then, the simulation results show that, when the low availability of equipment systems are 0.4, 0.6, the relative errors of the analytical model are 3.54%, 3.86%, and its costs are 0.52, 1.795 million ¥ RMB. The experiment proves that the inventory prediction accuracy of the analytical model is significantly higher than that of the VARI-METRIC model in low equipment system availability. Finally, the conclusion and future research directions are discussed.

Economic Order Quantity Model of Aircraft Turnover Parts in Aviation Industry

The inventory control of turnover parts is the key and difficult point for aircraft spare parts management, which is directly related to the benefit level of airlines in aviation industry.On the basis of considering the depreciation cost, repair cost, inventory cost and shortage cost, this paper analyzes the annual replacement times and turnover cycle, and puts forward the optimization model of Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) of aircraft turnover parts. The feasibility of the method is verified by an example. Through sensitivity analysis, it is concluded that the strong sensitive factors affecting EOQ are annual replacement times and unit shortage cost, while the purchase price has little influence on EOQ.

Civil Aircraft Spare Parts Prediction and Configuration Management Techniques: Review and Prospect

Spare parts are treated as the basis to guarantee the safe and economic operation of civil aircraft, its scientific prediction and reasonable configuration play an important role in perfecting integrated logistics support (ILS) and achieving win-win situation of stakeholders (e.g. manufacturers, operators, maintenance providers). This paper studies the existing spare parts prediction and configuration methods of civil aircraft, and discusses future development trend of spare parts from the perspective of prediction and configuration, respectively. The current development status of civil aircraft spare parts prediction techniques are firstly introduced, according to demand characteristics of spare parts; the present research status of civil aircraft spare parts configuration methods are then elaborated, based on the traditional methods and machine learning methods; the development trend of civil aircraft spare parts prediction and configuration methods is finally analyzed, combined with the advantages and disadvantages of the existing methods of civil aircraft spare parts management methods. The efforts of this work provide a reference for the comprehensive management of civil aircraft spare parts and improve the perfection degree for the ILS of civil aircraft.

An Integer Black-Box Optimization Model for Repairable Spare Parts Management

Spare parts management affects significantly costs and service level for supply chains. This paper deals with an inventory management problem for multi-item repairable systems via a systemic perspective based on a new efficient integer black-box optimization model. With respect to the traditionally used marginal allocation that considers items individually, the proposed black-box optimization model is a holistic approach in the fact that it exploits relationships among items. The authors propose a derivative-free algorithm specifically tied to the application which exploits a new selection strategy for choosing entire subsets of items with the aim to get the best expected improvement in the objective function. The approach has been tested on a real case study for optimizing stocks in an airline's inventory network. The case study provides evidence about the good behavior of the exploratory geometry of the proposed approach in finding quickly a feasible and optimal solution for inventory control.