Setting expediting repair policy in a multi-echelon repairable-item inventory system with limited repair capacity
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Setting expediting repair policy in a multi-echelon repairable-item inventory system with limited repair capacity Y Perlman, A Mehrez* and M Kaspi Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel Inventory systems with limited repair capacity are affected by congestion externalities, caused by use of a shared service. There is incompatibility between individual and system optimisation in considering congestion externalities. Three models are described that investigate the congestion effect in a multi-echelon inventory system which has two modes of repair, each with a limited repair capacity. An expanding repair policy employed by the bases in order to choose which repair mode to use is described and compared with different expediting policies related to congestion externalities. The expanding repair policy that considers congestion externalities was found to lead to better system performance measurement than an expanding policy with no congestion. The results of the numerical experiment indicate that the model that ignores congestion externalities Ð that is, the model that measures each base as an individual Ð leads to poorer performance measurement for every expediting repair policy, and particularly for the optimal expediting repair policy. Keywords: maintenance; expediting repair; multi-echelon inventory control; congestion externalities
Introduction Inventory systems where units which fail are repaired at the depot, rather than disposed after use, are called repairableitem inventory systems. A multi-echelon inventory system implies the existence of a hierarchy of stocking locations and the dependence and interactions between these inventories. Many organizations in the private sector make extensive use of multi-echelon repairable-item inventory systems. A wide use of repairable-item inventory systems also occurs in the military environment.1±5 The present paper is limited to the Air Force environment, but the models presented here can be implemented in the private sector as well. The main problem with a repairable system is one of design. That is, the structure of the systems and the operational problem that deals with the logistic issues, such as determination of an optimal spares stocking policy, allocation of these spares to various locations, determination of the maintenance policy, the distribution policy, etc. In this paper we are concerned with the operational problem. Thorough reviews of research on this problem have been conducted by Clark6 and Nahmias,7 *Correspondence: Professor A Mehrez, Industrial Engineering and Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Nagev, Beer-Sheeva 84105, Israel. E-mail: [email protected]
and a detailed description of multi-echelon, multiindenture, multi-item repairable item system appears in a recent book by Sherbrooke.8 (See also Axsater for a more general multi-echelon setting.9) The operational system in this paper is borrowed from the Air Force environme
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