Conceptual approach for integrating tactical spare parts inventory management and transport planning

The most striking challenges of spare parts supply chain management can be seen in the availability of the needed spare part(s), the ability to deploy the appropriately qualified service personnel, and the provision of required equipment, at the right place and the requested time. To meet these requirements, a well-organized planning of all tasks in spare parts supply chain management is required. The tasks to be considered here are production, inventory, and transport planning, as well as the planning of the service personnel and equipment. Focusing on the two most important planning tasks, being inventory and transportation planning, it is needed to determine the stock levels of all warehouses along a spare parts supply chain and the transports. To satisfy the spare parts demand quickly, sufficient spare parts need to be available while on the other hand the inventory costs shall be reduced. For dealing with this trade-off the inventories as well as the transports have to be aligned along a spare parts supply chain in a simultaneously manner. To address this, this article is providing a conceptual approach how spare parts inventory and transport planning can be integrated. The integration is based on existing methods which are analyzed concerning their applicability to spare parts supply chain management and in how far these methods needs to be extended. Based on this investigation, the result is a conceptual approach of a tactical integrated planning model which is able to align the inventories and transports along a spare parts supply chain by reducing the total costs.