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

维护和维修服务，包括飞机维护，维修和大修（MRO）行业是加拿大一个不断增长的行业，在过去几年中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先进资本货物至关重要。由于备件种类繁多，价格昂贵，这类设备的客户越来越多地减少其内部维护投资，并倾向于将系统维护的主要部分外包给外部服务提供商。维修物流网络是由备件供应商、维修服务提供商和设备用户组成的多级供应链。在复杂设备的背景下，这种供应链与制造业价值链不同，因为备件的数量和多样性，极分散的零件故障率，不确定的维修时间，单个零件的价格高，以及备件短缺的财务影响显著。全球竞争加剧和利润率下降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时间。 虽然备件库存规划的内部维护系统已被广泛研究的文献中，较少的研究一直致力于链接库存政策与战略和战术计划在MLN的背景下，外部服务提供商。这一显着的差距，在文献中，除了财务问题，加拿大的MRO行业最近一直面临吸引了我们的注意力，从供应链的角度来调查这个问题。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，这项研究计划的总体目标是提出一个先进的建模和算法框架MLN战略和战术规划，同时纳入服务部分库存控制政策以及这种价值链中固有的高水平的不确定性。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因素。我们的方法主要依赖于随机规划，分解算法，Meta分析，供应链协调合同，离散事件模拟，和近似算法的多级库存系统的性能评估。 通过提供强大的决策支持工具，这个多学科的研究计划预计将协助加拿大服务/维修部门保持经济可持续发展，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.