We study spare parts inventory control for a repair shop for aircraft components. Defect components that are removed from the aircraft are sent to such a shop for repair. Only after inspection of the component, it becomes clear which specific spare parts are needed to repair it, and in what quantity they are needed. Market requirements on shop performance are reflected in fill rate requirements on the turn around times of the repairs for each component type. The inventory for spare parts is controlled by independent min-max policies. Because parts may be used in the repair of different component types, the resulting optimization problem has a combinatorial nature. Practical instances may consist of 500 component types and 4000 parts, and thus pose a significant computational challenge. We propose a solution algorithm based on column generation. We study the pricing problem, and develop a method that is very efficient in (repeatedly) solving this pricing problem. With this method, it becomes feasible to solve practical instances of the problem in minutes.

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Erasmus School of Economics
hdl.handle.net/1765/25605
Econometric Institute Research Papers
Erasmus School of Economics

van Jaarsveld, W., & Dollevoet, T. (2011). Spare parts inventory control for an aircraft component repair shop (No. EI2011-24). Econometric Institute Research Papers. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1765/25605