ALGORITHMS FOR AN OPTIMUM ALLOCATION METHOD FOR SPARE PARTS FOR EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE NATIONWIDE AND ITS APPLICATION

In addition to the preparation of spare parts for equipment nationwide, their optimum allocation in the field is very important for the maintenance company so that there will be a shorter recovery time for failed equipment both for customer satisfaction and to minimise the investment costs for spare parts, which is usually enormous for the maintenance company and has a big impact on the company's cash flow. In this paper, authors plan to introduce the availability rate of parts and the frequency of part unavailability at parts warehouses, which are located in the field and stock spare parts, as a measurement of how sufficiently spare parts are stocked at the warehouses, investigating some optimum allocation methods as both models for repairing failed parts at a repair centre and replenishing corresponding spare parts used in the field automatically from a replenishment centre to warehouses. Transportation time for spare parts both from the replenishment centre to warehouses and between warehouses is also considered. Actual applications of this theory are also introduced and their practical usefulness shown.