Maintenance enterprise resource planning: information value among supply chain elements

Abstract

The maintenance supply chain involves maintenance, repair, and overhaul organizations and the relationships within and across suppliers and customers. These organizations work with the probability of equipment failure, maintenance, and the use requirements of spare parts. All of these elements increase uncertainty in this environment. Furthermore, it is difficult to integrate and process information to maintain effective inventory control. This high level of uncertainty and lack of integration of information cause inventory excesses and shortages of spare parts needed in maintenance, which results in unnecessary costs. This research proposes a new model based on information processing theories to connect the lateral elements of the supply chain, increase vertical information integration, and transform the maintenance supply chain into an efficient system to decrease shortages and excesses of inventory thereby reducing costs. This research will incorporate a simulation to compare the proposed new model with the traditional inventory models. This study claims that, when using the new model in different situations, inventory performance is better than in the traditional models of inventory control. The importance of the results for the maintenance organizations relates to potential improvements in cost and in inventory control while fulfilling mission requirements.