Part Of Logistics Research Articles

The AI-Driven Supply Chain: Optimizing Engine Part Logistics For Maximum Efficiency

The AI-Driven Supply Chain: Optimizing Engine Part Logistics For Maximum Efficiency

A proactive transshipment model for prototype parts logistics in the automotive industry

In the logistics of prototype parts in the automotive industry, unique parts are stored in warehouses and provided to assembly service providers to ensure a timely assembly of the associated prototype vehicles. As the allocation of the assembly orders to the assembly service providers may change before the start of the assembly, the shipments are planned at short notice. This article considers the short-term task of planning shipments of individual prototype parts from multiple warehouses to multiple assembly service providers. The current literature on planning shipments focuses mainly on parts available in batch sizes larger than one. However, as prototype parts are individual, storing them in adequate warehouses is crucial. A mixed-integer linear programming model for planning transshipments of parts between the warehouses and shipments to the assembly service providers to minimize overall costs is presented. The model enables the utilization of spare capacities of planned transports for a proactive transshipment of parts between warehouses. To this end, the future shipment costs of parts to assembly service providers are approximated to determine suitable warehouses. A numerical study shows that the proactive approach leads to a considerable cost reduction.

Integrated location and inventory planning in service parts logistics with last-mile delivery outsourcing

Outsourcing last-mile delivery to express companies provides an innovative strategy for capital goods manufacturers to improve service parts logistics. Given delivery dilemma due to geographically dispersed customers and low-frequency uncertain demands, we develop an integrated location and inventory problem with last-mile delivery outsourcing in a two-echelon service parts logistics. The proposed non-linear mixed integer programming model captures important decisions involving (1) location of local warehouses, (2) customer allocation to opened local warehouses, (3) inventory levels at these local warehouses, (4) outsourcing or self-operating last-mile delivery. We then replace service level constraints that cause nonlinearity with two new sets of constraints, and construct a linear mixed integer formulation that could be solved by GUROBI solver for some small-scale problems. It is still a challenging problem for large scale case, for which we propose an adaptive large neighbourhood search (ALNS) algorithm. Our extensive computational experiments verify the effectiveness of our model and algorithm. Computational experiments’ results indicate that outsourcing last-mile delivery amounting to around 12 % total cost savings on average, compared to self-operating in a real-world large instance from our research partner. Furthermore, we test some key parameters with computational experiments, and provide some managerial implications.

Developing the Additive Manufacturing Chain of AlSi7Mg with Laser Powder Bed Fusion and Tailored Heat Treatments for Railway Spare Parts

The use of metal additive manufacturing technologies in railways sector can provide increased flexibility in terms of spare part logistics. Combined with lightweight metals such as Al-alloys, the product performance can also be enhanced in terms of weight reduction, vibration and noise control. The railway sector is more likely to exploit large and bulky parts produced by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF), which should have appropriate mechanical properties. Therefore, the whole production chain should be analyzed considering the heat treatment steps suited for a distributed and resource efficient manufacturing scheme. Accordingly, this work analyzes the additive manufacturing of AlSi7Mg alloy by LPBF and its consecutive heat treatment steps. In particular, the impact of LPBF process productivity, heat treatment type and atmosphere composition were considered to analyze the most appropriate route for the needs of the railways applications. The results show that with an appropriate direct aging treatment in air, mechanical characteristics of the alloy could be improved, despite that the high layer thickness used in LPBF could increase process productivity. The absence of a quenching step was found to be favorable for large parts, while the absence of an inert gas such as Ar in the heat treatment did not generate any reduction in the mechanical properties.

Designing resilient military logistics with additive manufacturing

PurposeIn this study, the authors explore how novel and relevant technologies can change the overall design of systems, and which factors influence the design of resilient systems in particular. After evaluating the effects of these factors, the authors describe the potential role of AM-supported maintenance operations in military logistics and draw broader conclusions regarding designing for resilience.Design/methodology/approachThe authors build a simulation model of the AM-supported maintenance capability of a mechanised battalion to analyse factors affecting its resilience. AM production capacity specifically refers to metal printing and was verified by data generated from 3D printing of the actual APC parts.FindingsThe current AM speed is not able to increase resilience at the depot level, so at present, increasing the spare parts inventory is a better way to improve resilience. However, with future improvements in speed the AM may become feasible in battlefield maintenance.Practical implicationsAM holds great promise in increasing resilience of especially the spare part logistics. At present technology, it is not yet fully realised in the case.Originality/valueThe authors suggest a concrete system performance measure, where reaching a concrete limit, system resilience is lost. The authors present arguments for a definition of resilience where pre-disruption activities are not part of resilience. The authors maintain that simulation, with its ability to include detail, is well-suited in design-for-resilience because supply chains are context dependent and disruptions unexpected.

Application of 5s Methodology: A Case Study Towards Enhancing Spare Parts Processing Efficiency

This study investigates the significance of the 5s methodology and its applications in the efficient development of spare parts logistics and the handling of warehouse processes in the petroleum industry. The Delphi approach was used to obtain expert judgment opinion through a series of questionnaires. The information collected was assessed by a selected panel of experts to gather their consolidated opinion and propose their weighted final judgment. The Gemba walk approach was also used as a tool to describe the personal observation of the executed tasks based on random cross-checks of the interaction between senior staff and their employees to explore opportunities for continuous improvement. The results indicate that employee commitment toward implementing the 5s methodology contributes significantly to improve the processing of spare parts in a warehouse. Furthermore, the analysis exhibited 90.1% efficiency in the spare parts logistics in successive months. The results shows that 5s methodology improve the efficiency of the spare parts processing time in the warehouse and recommend the standardize pillar to be implemented weakly compared to the other four 5s pillars. The study shows the relevance of employees’ commitment toward using the 5s methodology to enhance the continuous improvement initiatives of the spare part logistics. This study explores the significance of the 5s methodology in improving the spare parts logistics in a warehouse and its use to overcome their deficiencies and improving the maintenance activities. It also seeks to eliminate downtime cost while improving safety, quality, and efficiency within the available resources. The research could help managers, operations professionals, and researchers investigate warehouse issues in many other industries.

Asynchronous optimization of part logistics routing problem

Asynchronous optimization of part logistics routing problem

Evaluation of the energy demands for a floating O&M-hub

The Energyhub@Sea concept is one of the four research applications of the Space@Sea project funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research program (GA number: 774253). The focus of this paper is the evaluation of the energy demands of an energy self-sufficient maintenance platform at the location of Helgoland in the North Sea. In view of this, a standardized modular floater was developed as an offshore wind operation and maintenance base, which in the following paper is referred to as an O&M hub. The O&M hub is intended to be equipped with accommodation facilities and various renewable energy infrastructure as well as spare parts logistics, enabling the platform to perform maintenance of offshore gearless wind turbines with a capacity of up to 10 MW. To be energy self-sustaining, an energy supply system for the hub was developed and simulated at a resolution of ten minutes by means of the Top-Energy simulation software, a commercial software tool. As a basis for the simulation, an approach for the automated determination of flexible load profiles, in resolutions of up to ten minutes was developed. This load profile generator creates load profiles on the basis of environmental conditions, technical characteristics, and expected behaviors of the inhabitants. On the basis of the generated load profiles, a first layout (referred to as baseline scenario) for the different components of the energy system was evaluated and tested through simulation. In a second step, three optimization scenarios were developed and simulated with regards to the financial feasibility of the Energyhub.

Demand forecasting methods for spare parts logistics for aviation: a real-world implementation of the Bootstrap method

One of the critical issues that an airline faces in its day-to-day operations is a correct prognosis of the necessary quantity of spare parts that are continuously fed into unexpected maintenance operations. Indeed, there is a critical need for accurate forecasting methods to predict the demand of these spare parts in order to minimize the so-called Aircraft-On-Ground situations. This paper describes the real-world implementation of the Bootstrap method and the assessment of its performance with actual data from aviation logistics. The analysis reveals that the Bootstrap method, while not the most accurate in every case, should be preferred over other popular methods in spare parts forecasting for aviation, because is more agile and can address adequately all categories of demand. A simple decision support system is then presented to assist airline materials managers in using the bootstrap method. The system is expandable and can potentially incorporate other forecasting method as well.

The after-sales strategy of an industrial equipment manufacturer: evaluation and control

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to evaluate the after-sales strategy of an industrial equipment manufacturer.Design/methodology/approachThe research study’s object is the Brazilian operation of a company belonging to a multinational group that designs, manufactures and installs technology-based equipment. The research method is qualitative modeling with a quantitative analysis. A literature review and a focus group with managers organized the after-sales strategy of the company in four constructs measured by 24 indicators. The constructs are technical assistance (TA), reliability management (RM), customer relationships (CRs) and spare part logistics (SL). A total of seven managers evaluated the importance and performance of the indicators.FindingsTA, RM and CRs are lagging constructs (the importance is greater than the performance), whereas SL is a leading construct (the opposite). The study proposed four strategic actions that change the type of emphasis that the company poses to service: from in-house to field maintenance service, from correction to prevention reliability improvement, from technical- to customer-focused relationships and from direct to integrated logistics service.Research limitations/implicationsThe study limits to the case of a technology-based manufacturing company.Practical implicationsThe strategic movement reallocates resources from leading indicators to lagging indicators in a sharp, clear movement of forces in the company.Originality/valueThe main contribution is a structured method to evaluate and control the strategic performance of an industrial equipment manufacturer in after-sales activities.

Integrated Health Monitoring for the actuation system of high-speed tilting trains

Tilting trains are designed to reach high speed on pre-existing railroads without the need of adjusting the tracks geometry or building dedicated lines; the tilting of the carbody keeps an acceptable level of comfort by limiting the lateral acceleration felt by passengers when the train runs along curved tracks with speed higher than the balance speed built into the curve geometry. As such, they are often used to reduce travel times on routes with several curves. Tilting is performed through a position-controlled actuation system which operates according to the commands received from the train control system: in the studied configuration, the torque needed to tilt the car body with respect to the bogie is provided by a series of hydraulic actuators, while the position information used to close the control loop comes from two capacitive sensors located in the front and rear part of each vehicle. Tilt angle measurement is vital for the system operation and for ensuring a safe ride; the traditional solution in case of discrepancy between the signals of the two tilt angle sensors of any vehicle is to disable the tilting function while limiting the train speed to avoid issues during changes of direction. In a similar fashion, the failure in one (or more) of the tilting actuators would result in the loss of the tilting capability and the return to a fixed configuration operating at reduced speed. It should be noticed that the negative impact of the loss of the tilting system is not limited to the faulty train, since it might affect the entire traffic schedule on the interested lines. The paper presents an integrated Health Monitoring framework that makes intelligent use of all available information thus enhancing the system availability, allowing its operation even in presence of faulty sensors and detecting the onset of failures in the actuation system. At the same time its use can facilitate maintenance organization, simplify the spare parts logistics and provide help to the traffic management. The proposed framework has been developed taking advantage of a high-fidelity model of the physical system validated through comparison with experimental mission profiles on the Lichtenfels - Saalfeld and Battipaglia - Reggio Calabria routes, which have been used by the train manufacturer to assess the performance of their tilting trains.

Joint optimization of location, inventory, and condition-based replacement decisions in service parts logistics

We model, analyze and study the effects of considering condition-based replacement of parts within an integrated Service Parts Logistics (SPL) system, where geographically dispersed customers’ products are serviced with new parts from network facilities. Conventional SPL models consider replacing the parts upon failure. This is true even for the latest models in which facility locations and their part stock levels are jointly optimized. Taking advantage of the increasingly affordable, continuous, and accurate collection of part condition data (via sensors and Internet-of-Things devices), we develop a new integrated model in which optimal conditions to replace the parts are decided along with facility locations and stock levels. We capture the part degradation, replacement and failure process using a Continuous Time Markov Chain (CTMC) and embed this into the integrated location and inventory model. The resulting formulation is a mixed-integer optimization model with quadratic constraints and is solved with a state-of-the-art second-order cone programming solver. Our extensive comparison with the traditional failure-based replacement model shows that optimizing replacement conditions in this integrated framework can provide significant cost savings (network, inventory, transportation and downtime costs) leading to different facility location, allocation and inventory decisions. We also study the effects of several important parameters on the condition-based replacement model, including facility costs, shipment speeds, replacement costs, part degradation parameters, and holding costs.

Integrated location and inventory planning in service parts logistics with customer-based service levels

We analyze the integrated logistics network design and inventory stocking problem in service parts logistics, where each customer requires a certain response time-based service level. We introduce a non-linear mixed integer optimization model that explicitly captures the interdependency between network design (locating facilities, and allocating customers’ demands to facilities) and inventory stocking decisions (stock levels and their corresponding stochastic fill rates). We then provide two different linearized mixed integer formulations for this problem that can solve small and medium size problems. We show that it is still a challenging problem in general, for which we have a Lagrangian-relaxation based approach that provides extremely tight lower and upper bounds. Our extensive computational study shows the effectiveness of the proposed approach for a variety of problem instances, producing provably near-optimal integrated solutions.

A Referenced Cyber Physical System for Compressor Manufacturing

Compressor is a typical high-end discrete product，with the shortening of product life cycle and the enhancement of the degree of product customization, the traditional compressor manufacturing system architecture cannot meet the requirements of comprehensive digital management of compressor from body scheme design to parts production line, logistics management, operation and maintenance monitoring and evaluation. This paper presents a compressor manufacturing system architecture based on digital twinning, and establishes an Internet platform for compressor industry oriented to remote coordination from three aspects of compressor design, production, operation and maintenance. The platform includes industrial Internet infrastructure layer, physical space entity model layer, virtual space multidimensional model layer, physical space and virtual space multidimensional model correlation and mapping layer, big data intelligent analysis decision-making layer, and digital twin application layer. Through the establishment of the compressor product design and simulation model of digital twin, compressor production process digital twin model, compressor fault diagnosis and remote operations digital twin model, implementation is based on the number of compressor collaboration in manufacturing industrial Internet platform twin system, leading the transformation and upgrading of intelligent manufacturing industry, compressor industry sustainable development ability and international competitiveness.

An approach to reengineering applied to control of container logistics cost using the PERT network

With the development of society and the advancement of science and technology, Chinese automobile manufacturers are struggling with increasingly intense competition in the market. To earn a place in the industry and improve brand competitiveness, many companies are beginning to focus on the logistics of cost control, such that the whole supply chain cost is at its lowest when the value is at its highest, as this is the key to the future survival and development of China's automobile industry. As an example, this paper uses the container transport of Changan Ford auto parts logistics, and based on the cost analysis derived from the program evaluation and review technique (PERT), the existing transport process is reengineered. Through the comparison of the costs before and after the transformation and the sensitivity analysis based on the reengineered process, it is determined that the reengineered process is superior to the initial process and exhibits strong practical guiding significance for logistics cost control and the development of China's automobile companies.

An approach to reengineering applied to control of container logistics cost using the PERT network

With the development of society and the advancement of science and technology, Chinese automobile manufacturers are struggling with increasingly intense competition in the market. To earn a place in the industry and improve brand competitiveness, many companies are beginning to focus on the logistics of cost control, such that the whole supply chain cost is at its lowest when the value is at its highest, as this is the key to the future survival and development of China's automobile industry. As an example, this paper uses the container transport of Changan Ford auto parts logistics, and based on the cost analysis derived from the program evaluation and review technique (PERT), the existing transport process is reengineered. Through the comparison of the costs before and after the transformation and the sensitivity analysis based on the reengineered process, it is determined that the reengineered process is superior to the initial process and exhibits strong practical guiding significance for logistics cost control and the development of China's automobile companies.

Pooling management and transport optimization of packing boxes for motor engine parts

Based on the analysis of current inbound logistics and packing box utilization of a motor engine factory and the demand for the parts from motor engine factories, we propose a new logistics system by establishing a packing box pooling center and using milk-run picking to load the empty and full packing boxes. A programming model for locating pooling centers and transporting the packing boxes is established with the objective of minimizing the total transport cost for the parts logistics. A solution algorithm is designed and used for sensitivity analyses of the effects of changing pooling centers on the inbound logistics cost.

Research on Distribution Efficiency of Automobile After-sales Spare Parts Based on System Dynamics

The distribution of aftermarket spare parts is an important part of automotive aftermarket parts logistics. The level of distribution efficiency is the key factor affecting customer satisfaction and the economic benefits of accessory companies. The paper uses the theory and modeling method of system dynamics to study the efficiency of the automobile after-sales spare parts distribution system, establishes a dynamic simulation model, and experiments and improves the model based on three important time elements in the system. Experiments show that shortening the delay time between nodes and adjusting the inventory adjustment time properly have positive practical significance for improving the distribution efficiency of aftermarket spare parts.

Optimal operational strategies of supply chain under financing service by a 3PL firm

As an innovative mode of supply chain finance, financing service offered by a third part logistics (3PL) firm has been practiced over the recent years. This paper investigates the optimal operational strategies of the supply chain system consisting of a supplier, a capital-constrained retailer and a 3PL firm. In this study, we compare the optimal operational strategies under both decentralised and centralised decisions, and put forward the supply chain coordination condition when the 3PL firm offers financing service. Several important results are achieved. First, the supplier’s wholesale price strategy has obvious influence on the decisions of the retailer and the 3PL firm. Second, the retailer’s ordering quantity under 3PL financing service is more than that without any financing service; and it can exceed the ordering quantity of a well-funded retailer, if and only if the supplier’s wholesale price and the 3PL’s interest rate meet certain conditions. Finally, we find that under 3PL financing service, the profit of supply chain can achieve Pareto improvement, and the wholesale price contract may realise profit maximisation and channel coordination in the supply chain system under certain condition.

Modeling and long-term forecasting demand in spare parts logistics businesses

In order to provide high service levels, companies competing in the electronics manufacturing sector need to ensure the availability of spare parts for repair and maintenance operations. This paper examines the purchase life-cycles of electronic spare parts and presents a new way of modeling and forecasting spare part demand for electronic commodities in the spare parts logistics services. The presented modeling methodology is founded on the assumption that the purchase life-cycles of spare parts can be described by a curve with short term fluctuations around it. For this purpose, a flexible Demand Model Function is introduced. The proposed forecasting method uses a knowledge discovery-based approach that is built upon the combined application of analytic and soft computational techniques and is able to indicate the turning points of the purchase life-cycle curve. The novelty lies in the fact that the model function has certain characteristics which support describing and interpreting the demand trend as a function of time. The application of our methodology is mainly advantageous in long-term forecasting, it can be especially useful in supporting purchase planning decisions in the ramp-up and declining phases of purchase life-cycles of product specific spare parts. A demonstrative example is used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed methodology. Its forecasting capability is compared to those of some widely applied methods in business practice. From the results, the new method may be viewed as a viable alternative spare part demand forecasting technique in spare part logistics sector.