In supply chain networks, the flow of material occurs between various business entities such as suppliers, manufactures, distributors, and retailers, which can be considered as the various echelons ...(levels) in a multi-echelon supply chain network. Spare parts supply chain management deals with optimizing stocking, purchasing, repairing, and disposing activities of purchased parts and their components for maintaining a successful user-service level for a system involving repair and operating functions. A spare parts inventory system has products that will have relationships with other products. A multi-indenture structure defines the structure of the products that flow through the supply chain system. In this article, we present a standardized, object-oriented, data-driven, simulation framework for the evaluation of multi-echelon multi-indenture spare part supply chain networks.
Purpose To investigate the application of multiattribute utility theory MAUT to aid in the decisionmaking process when performing benchmarking gap analysis. Designmethodologyapproach MAUT is selected ...to identify the overall bestinclass BIC performer for performance metrics involving inventory record accuracy within a public sector warehouse. A traditional benchmarking analysis is conducted on 14 industry warehouse participants to determine industry best practices for the four critical warehouse metrics of picking and inventory accuracy, storage speed, and order cycle time. Inventory and picking tolerances are also investigated in the study. A gap analysis is performed on the critical metrics and the absolute BIC is used to measure performance gaps for each metric. The gap analysis results are then compared to the MAUT utility values, and a sensitivity analysis is performed to compare the two methods. Findings The results indicate that an approach based on MAUT is advantageous in its ability to consider all critical metrics in a benchmarking study. The MAUT approach allows the assignment of priorities and analyzes the subjectivity for these decisions, and provides a framework to identify one performer as best across all critical metrics. Research limitationsimplications This research study uses the additive utility theory AUT which is only one of multiple decision theory techniques. Practical implications A new approach to determine the best performer in a benchmarking study. Originalityvalue Traditional benchmarking studies use gap analysis to identify a BIC performer over a single critical metric. This research integrates a mathematically driven decision analysis technique to determine the overall best performer over multiple critical metrics.
Traditional multi-echelon inventory and readiness-based models have not fully examined the ability of effective transportation utilization to reduce cost, delay times, and improve readiness in the ...overall military logistics network. In this paper, we develop a simulation-based methodology for quantifying the effect of transportation options (i.e., truckload shipping, less-than-truckload shipping, transshipments, and express air shipping) on shipping costs, customer wait times, abort rates, and operational availability. Simulation was used to develop a multi-echelon (depots, bases) model of regional supply chain support for aircraft spare part maintenance activities. The resulting model was used for experimentation and to develop response surface equations for the behavior of the system. The logistics implications of the results are discussed as well as managerial insights into the behavior of such systems. Our analysis indicates that focusing more on local inventory and local repair can have a significant impact on the operational availability of the system. This shift should be looked at in terms of the cost of local repair resources compared to transportation costs.
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