Inventory Optimization to Guide Selection of Spare Parts for Digital Manufacturing

Abstract

Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) refer to how a corporation obtains MRO spare parts to restore or maintain its equipment. This includes concerns about inventory cost, inventory space, forecasting the future, and determining the current need for spare parts, repairs, and recovery of defective parts. It also involves direct communication with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers because the necessary inventory is determined by the rate of spare component consumption, lead time, and the supplier's capacity to produce or repair them. Handling obsolete items and components' shelf-life are additional challenges; obsolete parts are no longer used because of component upgrades or changes. The shelf life is regulated due to limits based on degradation and chemical changes.

The advent of digital manufacturing has been heralded as a possible solution for tackling these concerns. However, companies need to check if adopting such technology is cost-effective. The current study intends to show a guideline for companies to follow to filter spare parts that are promising for digital manufacturing. Then use optimization to plot an inventory cost vs. the expected number of backorders (EBO) and indicate the optimal set of items to manufacture digitally, which will give a clear picture if it's beneficial for companies to produce the parts digitally.

The results reveal an opportunity to reduce the current need for spare parts using digital manufacturing.

Date of Award	Dec 2022
Original language	American English
Supervisor	Andrei Sleptchenko (Supervisor)