Book Description
The purpose of this study is to analyze an inventory/maintenance system for recoverable items, that is, items which are subject to repair when they fail. The repair of items is performed by a maintenance facility which has a fixed number of service stations or channels which are also subject to failure. When an item fails, a demand is immediately placed for a like replacement from a spare pool. The failed part is sent to the repair facility to be serviced on a first-come, first-served basis. The spare pool is replenished when repair on the item is completed. When a service station fails, repair is initiated immediately and the failed server is replaced by an operative spare server if one is available. This analysis is limited to a single-echelon system with no outside sources of supply or repair. The objective of this study is to model the system described in order to observe the relationship of system performance to spare stock levels and service facility design. Specifically, the model is used to minimize the total expected unit backorders given an investment constraint on the number of spare items, service channels and spare servers in the system.