About spare parts cannibalization for rotable items. A preliminary approach for inventory control

Inventory management is a core business activity especially in case of high-value spare-parts. An optimal inventory management strategy can generate relevant savings, while ensuring high service levels. This research aims to develop a systemic approach to combine reliability and maintainability parameters and define optimal stock levels for rotable items. The research starts from the METRIC (Multi-Echelon Technique for Recoverable Item Control), and enhances its formulation through a cannibalization modelling perspective. Cannibalization is a policy used as a complementary approach to traditional spare parts management usually adopted in case of inventory shortage. This research aims at modelling cannibalization in a systemic model in order to estimate its benefits in terms of stock reduction. This paper presents a METRIC-like analytical formulation and tests it in a real case scenario. The preliminary case study refers to an inventory management problem for a civil aviation company and confirms the benefits of the proposed cannibalization approach.