Analytical tools for robust strategic and tactical planning in maintenance logistics networks

包括飞机维护、维修和大修(MRO)行业在内的维护和维修服务在加拿大是一个不断增长的行业，过去几年通过创造就业机会和收入为经济做出了贡献。高系统可用性对于飞机、大型计算机和医疗设备等高级资本货物至关重要。由于备件的种类和价格较高，这类设备的客户越来越少地减少内部维护投资，并倾向于将系统维护的主要部件外包给外部服务提供商。维修物流网络是由备件供应商、维修服务商和设备使用者组成的多层次供应链。在设备复杂的情况下，这种供应链不同于制造价值链，原因是备件数量多、种类繁多、零星的部件故障率、不确定的维修时间、单个部件的高价格以及备件短缺在财务上的显著影响。日益激烈的全球竞争和不断缩小的利润率迫使这个资本密集型行业寻找新的决策工具，以提高服务质量和交货期。 虽然文献中对内部维护系统的备件库存计划进行了广泛的研究，但在外部服务提供商的背景下，将库存政策与MLN中的战略和战术计划联系起来的研究较少。文献中的这一重大差距，再加上加拿大MRO行业最近面临的财务问题，吸引了我们从供应链的角度来研究这一问题。然而，后者在独立的MLN利益攸关方之间的协调方面提出了几个具有挑战性的问题。因此，本研究计划的总体目标是为MLN战略和战术规划提出一个先进的建模和算法框架，同时纳入服务部件库存控制政策以及此类价值链中固有的高度不确定性。设计这些物流网络的利益相关者之间的协调机制是本研究计划的另一个关键要素。我们的方法主要依赖于随机规划、分解算法、元启发式算法、供应链协调契约、离散事件仿真和近似算法来评估多级库存系统的性能。 通过提供强大的决策支持工具，这一多学科研究计划有望帮助加拿大的服务/维修行业保持经济上的可持续发展，同时最大限度地提高客户服务水平。

Maintenance and repairing services including the aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) industry is a growing sector in Canada that has been contributing to the economy by creating jobs and revenue over the past few years. High system availability is essential for advanced capital goods such as aircraft, mainframe computers, and medical devices. Due to the high variety and price of spare parts, customers of such equipment are more and more reducing their in-house maintenance investment and prefer to outsource major parts of system upkeep to an external service provider. The Maintenance Logistics Network (MLN) is a multi-echelon supply chain composing of spare part suppliers, maintenance service providers, and equipment users. Such supply chains, in the context of complex equipment, differ from manufacturing value chains due to the large number and diversity of spare parts, extremely sporadic part failure rates, uncertain repair times, high prices of individual parts, and financially remarkable effect of spare part shortage. Increasing worldwide competition and shrinking profit margins are forcing this capital-intensive sector to find novel decision tools in order to improve the service quality and lead-time. While spare part inventory planning for in-house maintenance systems has been extensively investigated in the literature, less research has been devoted to link inventory policies with strategic and tactical plans in MLNs in the context of external service providers. This significant gap in the literature in addition to financial issues Canadian MRO industries have been recently facing attracted our attention to investigate this problem from a supply chain viewpoint. Nevertheless, the latter raises several challenging questions in terms of coordination among independent MLN stakeholders. The overall objective of this research program is hence to propose an advanced modelling and algorithmic framework for MLN strategic and tactical planning while incorporating service part inventory control policies as well as high level of uncertainty inherent in such value chains. Designing coordination mechanisms among stakeholders of these logistics networks is another key element of this research program. Our methodology mainly relies on stochastic programming, decomposition algorithms, meta heuristics, supply chain coordination contracts, discrete-event simulation, and approximation algorithms for performance evaluation of multi-echelon inventory systems. By providing robust decision support tools, this multidisciplinary research program is expected to assist Canadian service/repair sector remain economically sustainable while maximising customer service level.