Optimizing Concurrent Spare Parts Inventory Levels for Warships Under Dynamic Conditions

Abstract

The inventory level of concurrent spare parts (CSP) has a significant impact on the availability of a weapon system. A failure rate function might be of particular importance in deciding the CSP inventory level. We developed a CSP optimization model which provides a compromise between purchase costs and shortage costs on the basis of the Weibull and the exponential failure rate functions, assuming that a failure occurs according to the (non-) homogeneous Poisson process. Computational experiments using the data obtained from the Korean Navy identified that, throughout the initial provisioning period, the optimization model using the exponential failure rate tended to overestimate the optimal CSP level, leading to higher purchase costs than the one using the Weibull failure rate. A Pareto optimality was conducted to find an optimal combination of these two failure rate functions as input parameters to the model, and this provides a practical solution for logistics managers.