Cross-training policies for repair shops with spare part inventories

Andrei Sleptchenko, Hasan Hüseyin Turan, Shaligram Pokharel and Tarek Y. ElMekkawy

International Journal of Production Economics, 2019, vol. 209, issue C, 334-345

Abstract: We study a spare part supply system for repairable spare parts where parallel repair servers may have multiple skills (can repair different failed parts). Demands for the spares occur according to Poisson processes with different rates. The failed spare parts are immediately replaced from the inventory. Otherwise, failed parts are backordered and fulfilled when a spare of the same type becomes available (repaired). The repair servers are heterogeneous and can process certain types of repairables only if they have the necessary skill. In this system, in contrast with the other skill-optimization models, there is a trade-off between adding extra skills to servers (training) or adding extra inventory. In this paper, we formulate a mathematical model to optimize the assignment of skills to servers taking into account inventories for the ready-to-use spares and backorder costs (penalties). To optimize the skill assignments and inventories, we use a hybrid approach combining a Genetic Algorithm (GA) with simulation modeling. The proposed simulation-based optimization heuristic is used for extensive analysis of optimal skill assignments where we show that partial flexibility for repair servers with limited cross-training will lead to lower total system cost.

Keywords: Spare part logistics; Repair shop; Cross-training; Simulation optimization; Genetic Algorithm (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925527317304243
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:proeco:v:209:y:2019:i:c:p:334-345

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2017.12.018

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Production Economics is currently edited by Stefan Minner

More articles in International Journal of Production Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().