Spare Parts Inventory Control under System Availability Constraints

This book focuses on the tactical planning level for spare parts management. It describes a series of multi-item inventory models and presents exact and heuristic optimization methods, including greedy heuristics that work well for real, life-sized problems. The intended audience consists of graduate students, starting scholars in the field of spare parts inventory control, and spare parts planning specialists in the industry.

In individual chapters the authors consider topics including: a basic single-location model; single-location models with multiple machine types and/or machine groups; the multi-location model with lateral transshipments; the classical METRIC model and its generalization to multi-indenture systems; and a single-location model with an explicit modeling of the repair capacity for failed parts and the priorities that one can set there.

Various chapters of the book are used in a master course at Eindhoven University of Technology and in a PhD course of the Graduate Program Operations Management and Logistics (a Dutch network that organizes PhD courses in the field of OM&L). The required pre-knowledge consists of probability theory and basic knowledge of Markov processes and queuing theory.  End-of-chapter problems appear for all chapters, with some answers appearing in an appendix.

Geert-Jan van Houtum is Professor of Maintenance and Reliability at Eindhoven University of Technology since 2008. Prior to that, he filled positions as assistant/associate professor at the University of Twente (1994-1998) and Eindhoven University of Technology (1999-2007) and as visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University (2001). He obtained his MSc and PhD degree in Applied Mathematics from Eindhoven University of Technology in 1990 and 1995, respectively. He does research on the maintenance and reliability of capital goods, and in particular on: (i) Design and control of service supply chains; (ii) Maintenance concepts; (iii) Design for availability. He publishes in journals such as Operations Research, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, European Journal of Operational Research, and International Journal of Production Economics. He is associate editor of Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, OR Spectrum, the Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, and Mathematical Methods of Operational Research. For much of his research, he collaborates with companies such as ASML, Gordian, IBM, NedTrain, Océ, Philips, Marel, and Vanderlande Industries. He is scientific director of the Beta Research School for Operations Management and Logistics.

Bram Kranenburg is Senior Consultant at Consultants in Quantitative Methods CQM in Eindhoven. He works at CQM since 2006. The projects he is involved in, concern supply chain analytics, modeling, innovation, and optimization projects. He obtained his MSc degree in Industrial Engineering and Management at the University of Twente in 2000, his MTD (Master of Technological Design) degree in Mathematics for Industry at Eindhoven University of Technology in 2003, and his PhD Degree at Eindhoven University of Technology, Department of Technology Management, in 2006. Geert-Jan van Houtum and Ton de Kok were the supervisors of the PhD project. Both the final project of Mathematics forIndustry and the PhD project have been carried out in collaboration with ASML. For his PhD dissertation, Bram received the EURO Doctoral Dissertation Award 2007 of the Association of European Operational Research Societies for the best PhD dissertation defended at a European university within the Operations Research area.