Spare parts inventory and demand management.

Comparing theoretical approaches with managerial

practice.
A. Bacchetti1,2, M. Perona1 , N. Saccani1
1
Research Center on Service Management - Department of Mechanical Engineering, Università di
Brescia, Via Branze 38, 25123 Brescia (Italy);
2
Corresponding author - e.mail: andrea.bacchetti@ing.unibs.it

Abstract
Demand and inventory management for spare parts are different than for components
used in assembly of finished products, in reason of lumpy demand, larger variety and
risk of stock obsolescence. The paper deals with three aspects: 1) a description of the
elements of complexity peculiar to the spare parts supply chain; 2) a framework and a
literature review about spare parts demand and inventory management approaches and
models; 3) the analysis of five case studies, suggesting a gap between theoretical
approaches and the ones adopted in practice by companies.

Keywords: spare parts, demand forecasting, inventory management.

Introduction

The design and management of spare parts demand, inventory and distribution networks
encompasses a set of decisions that can be grouped in (Huiskonen, 2001): 1) a
strategy/policies/processes level, concerning the definition of objectives (e.g. service
level); 2) the definition of the network structure (e.g. number of inventory echelons and
locations); 3) the coordination and control mechanisms (inventory control principles,
incentive and performance measurement systems, information support tools); 4) the
supply chain relationships. The study of real cases (e.g. Persson and Saccani, 2009)
show that these decisions are strongly related one another, and impact on the
performance of the whole supply chain and its actors. Since after-sales supply managers
are faced with trade-offs when making these decisions, mathematical models and
decision support systems can be of great help. Nonetheless, in this paper we argue that a
gap exists between theory and managerial practice. In fact, models in literature might
not be applicable to real life, since they often rely on hypotheses that oversimplify the
situation (for instance about demand features, data availability, or information sharing
among supply-chain actors). Moreover, they do not adopt an integrated approach
towards the set of decisions described above, so they might take only to local
optimization. In addition, other practical obstacles exist, such as the different knowledge
of the problems treated by the functions involved in the decision-making process
(Kerkkanen, 2007), or the availability of the financial and human resources needed to
implement complex decision models. Moreover, decision-makers are keen to base their

1
decisions on experience and common sense (Zsambok, 1997) and they may neglect the
recommendations of decision support systems, as argued by Fransoo and Wiers (2008).
This paper, after an introductory part that explain the main differences between the
management of spare parts for after-sales service and components for first assembly of
finished products, presents a framework relating the different decision aspects about the
configuration and management of a spare parts inventory and distribution network.
Then, the paper proposes a review of research about the main aspects of the framework
itself. Finally, five case studies of appliance manufacturers are described, in order to
point out the gap that exists between theoretical approaches and the ones adopted in
practice, trying to identify causes and levers to use for performance improvement.

Complexity drivers of spare parts demand and inventory management

The inventory and demand management for spare parts is more critical than for
components used in assembly of finished products, in reason of three aspects (Persson
and Saccani, 2009):
• Numerousness and Variety. Technological innovation occurring at an increased
pace, time-based competition (Stalk and Hout, 1990), the consequent reduction of
time-to-market, the increased renewal rate of the product range by manufacturers,
the mass customisation phenomenon for consumer goods (Pine, 1993) as well as the
increasing relevance of product customisation, concur in widening the range of
spare parts a manufacturer should manage.
• Time (responsiveness). A responsive product support process and spare parts
availability are critical factors in many contexts. Holding stocks at every customer
location would allow to reach this objective, but the variety issue described above
often prevent from doing that. Moreover, the time dimension interact with the
variety and demand dimension by creating the obsolescence phenomenon.
According to Cohen et al. (2006), 23% of spares become obsolete every year.
• Demand. The demand for spares tends to show a lumpy pattern. Lumpiness may
emerge as a consequence of specific market characteristics, in particular
numerousness and heterogeneity of customers in the market, order frequency,
variety and correlation of customer requests (Bartezzaghi et al, 1999). Moreover, the
consumption rate of a spare part is highly dependent on the number of pieces of
equipment where the part is installed, as well as its intrinsic level of reliability.

A framework for spare parts management

In figure 1 we present a framework relating the different decision aspects concerning

the configuration and management of a spare parts inventory and distribution network.
This framework adopts a supply chain perspective, focusing on managerial aspects
rather than on formal analysis or modelling; its objective is to be a guide for both
literature review and case-based research, and as a consequence of this, to allow a
comparison between theory and practice.

2
Figure 1 – The proposed framework

The first factor that influence planning choices is the spare parts demand, in particular
its volume and variability. This is strongly related to some underlying variables, i.e. the
product features, the customers characteristics and the supply chain structure.
The product features influencing spare parts demand are a). specificity, in order to
discriminate spares which are widely used and are also readily available, from others
used only in few and specific models of finished products, b). criticality, in particular
process criticality, related to the consequences caused by the failure when a replacement
is not readily available, and control criticality, related to the possibility of predicting
and controlling unexpected situations such as failure, existence of spare part suppliers,
etc. (Cavalieri et al., 2003), c). value of the part and d). life cycle phase of the related
finished products (Persson and Saccani, 2009).
In addition, the most relevant among the customers characteristics are a). the
numerousness of potential customers, b). the heterogeneity of customers (for instance in
some markets where few large customers coexist with a large number of small
customers), c) the frequency of customer requests, d) the variety of customers requests
(measurable by the coefficient of variation of the demand of a single customer) and e).
the correlation between customers requests, for example due to imitation which induce
similar behaviours in customers (Bartezzaghi et al., 1999). The supply chain structure,
finally, influences demand through a). the number and type of different actors involved
and b). the level of vertical integration.
The second block of the framework consists of the Objectives and Internal Organization
of the company. It includes structural and organizational aspects, such as company
size, sector and the functions involved in the spare parts management, and the company
operations strategy, which includes the relationship among demand forecasting,
inventory management and company competitive priorities, such as costs, quality,
delivery performance or flexibility (Leang et al., 1990).
The framework suggests that these factors impact on the planning choices, in particular
on spare parts demand and inventory management, the focus of this paper. Our
objective is to investigate the relationships that exist between demand management
(planning and forecasting) and inventory management (when to place an order, how
many units to order and, in a multi-echelon and multi-location system, where to place
spare parts inventories) in different environments.
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Last item of our framework is the Performance Assessment of the demand & inventory
management process. Performance management should be carried out with an
integrated perspective, focusing on the trade-off between inventory and service level, in
relation with the customer service objectives (Zotteri and Kalchschmidt, 2007). Indeed,
in multi-echelon systems, it is useful to assess economics and service performances, on
both the single node and whole logistic chain (Cavalieri et al., 2003). Obviously, the
output of performance assessment leads firms to make, in the long term, aware
decisions about the configuration of the logistic network that govern the overall
described process.

Demand management
Literature has deeply focused on demand uncertainty and its effects on business
performances. When dealing with uncertain demand, there are 3possible approaches that
can be developed. First of all, one can redefine the decisional problem in order to
eliminate (or reduce) the source of uncertainty. For example, at the product design level,
it is possible to reduce the number of sub-assemblies by leveraging on common
components. In this way, the requests for a single component rise, thus reducing the
uncertainty effects. Secondly, it is possible to influence demand so to better manage it,
for example by means of marketing campaigns and partnerships with important
customers. Finally, efforts can be made to reduce the effects of uncertainty by means of
flexibility, slack capacity or inventories. This action is usually not effective when
dealing with extremely variable situations; in these conditions, variability must be
anticipated by improving forecasts (Kalchschmidt, 2002). Today in fact, especially in
complex supply chains, the importance of forecasting is higher than in the past, since
high inventory levels are not acceptable any more, as they carry heavy holding and
obsolescence cost. To cope with this ever more relevant issue, literature has provided
two basic approaches: judgmental and quantitative forecasting.
Judgmental forecasting is based on the knowledge developed by people over time and
so their experience play a primary role. This methodology, typically based on an
implicit model, allows exploiting all types of information available, in particular the
unstructured one, but it is difficult to apply to a large number of items. The most known
techniques are Delphi Method, Lifecycle Analogy, Expert Judgment and Building
Scenario (for more details, see Makridakis et al, 1983).
On the other hand, when the quantity of items that need to be forecasted grows,
quantitative techniques are preferable; these techniques aim at identifying some kind of
link between past and future behaviour, or relationship among observable variables and
the spare parts demand. First, we can classify forecasting approaches according to the
aspect of the forecasting process they focus on: on one side there are Time Series
Methods, that rely on past demand data, and, on the other side, methods that leverage on
the information retrieval process regarding how demand is generated. Within Time
Series Methods, it is possible to separate techniques used for stable demand from those
expressively studied to be applied to highly variable or uncertain demand, in particular
lumpy demand. For what deals with stable demand, literature considers Smoothing and
Average based techniques, that include simple averages, simple moving averages,
weighted moving averages (Makridakis et al, 1983) and exponential smoothing (Brown,
1959; Winters, 1960), Bivariate and Multivariate models (Makridakis et al, 1983) and
ARIMA methods, developed by Box and Jenkins (1976), all suitable for regular patterns
of demand or in case of systematic variability, such as trends and seasonality. When
demand is lumpy, these techniques tend to perform poorly (Bartezzaghi et al, 1999), and
so the suggestion is to consider different techniques, studied specifically for variable
4
and uncertain demand. The first approach was developed by Croston (1972), who
introduced a new specific method; according to this method, separate exponential
smoothing estimates of the average size of the demand and the average time interval
between demand occurrences are made. If demand occurs in the following period,
estimates are updated, otherwise they remain the same. Other authors have provided
other similar approaches that modify this method to reduce sources of bias (Syntetos
and Boylan, 2001; Leven and Segerstedt, 2004). Another approach is Wright’s method
(1986), that is a modification of Holt’s method in which a trend line is calculated and
updated using exponential smoothing. Another promising technique is Bootstrapping,
developed by Willemain et al. (2004) to forecast intermittent demand, especially when a
poor series of past data are available. However, the major criticality related with time
series methods is that they are more focused on the demanded quantity than on when
demand will occur. This can be a relevant problem when demand shows a very sporadic
pattern or when lumpiness is very high, since these systems tend to increase inventories
even if demand will occur very far in time.
These problems can be reduced by adopting different techniques based not on past
demand data (or at least not only), but that focus on the demand generation process and
that try to estimate future market requirements by looking at information linked to
demand variability. We can classify these kinds of techniques according to the
perspective they adopt in the information retrieval process. A first group of methods has
a product-oriented focus; these techniques, in fact, pay attention to product
characteristics and commonalities and they are known as Analysis of Reliability
(Yamashina, 1989). This technique is studied to deal with spare parts markets, since it
links the failure probability for a component to its requirements. The most known model
in this area was developed by Yamashina (1989), and focuses on reliability of
components in order to derive the number of parts that will be requested during a certain
period of time. The main problem of this kind of approach is that some kind of technical
analysis on parts has to be conducted and this operation is often complex and costly,
moreover when items are many. A different perspective is adopted by other techniques
that focus directly on customers; among these techniques there is Order Overplanning
(Bartezzaghi et al., 1999). By focusing on the purchasing process of each customer, the
functions involved in the sales process try to capture subjective information on possible
requirements that will occur in a given time period t. This early information can be used
to separate customers in two groups: those customers that are expected to place an order
(likely buyers) and those that seem not intended to place any request (unlikely buyers).
According to Bartezzaghi et al. (1999), this method is suitable in cases of significant
interactions between buyers and sellers before the order is placed, a case not very
common for spare parts.
Indeed, there are some other approaches that use at the same time demand data and
information related with the demand generation process (mixed methods). Into this
family we can find the techniques called Early Sales (Kalchschmidt, 2002), that
evaluate forecasts of total demand during a certain period by means of a partial
observation of demand. Typically these techniques use data as pattern of demand in
analogous period (of very similar products) during past years an orders that have been
already received. Obviously, in order to apply these methods a high correlation between
the different products considered and, especially, customers, because the orders
achieved by first (early) buyers could well represent purchase intentions of the late
buyers. This approach should be used to predict the demand for spare parts when new
product models are offered on the market. An innovative approach, belonging to the
mixed methods family, applies neural network modelling in forecasting lumpy demand
5
(Bartezzaghi et al., 1999). Flexibility and nonlinearity are the two most powerful
aspects of neural networks; these models are also designed to learn the relationship
between independent and dependent variables incrementally when new information is
available. Gutierrez et al (2008), in their paper, demonstrate that neural network models
are generally superior to the traditional time-series models in forecasting lumpy
demand. One important aspect is that neural network can be combined with both time
series method and demand generation models, in order to build effective hybrid models.

Inventory management
In this paper we focus on the major contributions specifically related to spare parts
inventories in multi-echelon system, updating the work by Kennedy et al. (2002). From
one side there are papers that adopt an Integrated approach, that offer a systematic view
of spares inventory management, often proposing a specific framework and which do
not necessarily develop analytical models or methods, but might propose only
managerial guidelines. On the other side, there are some contributions that show a
specific Modelling approach; it means that they focus on a specific context and
problem, and develop ad hoc models in order to find the optimal solution.
Among the Integrated Approach class, we can include the works by Petrovic et al.
(1990), Gajpal et al. (1994), Huiskonen (2001), Diaz (2003), Braglia et al. (2004),
Niemi and Huiskonen (2006) and Cavalieri et al. (2008).
In the Modelling class, focusing only on multi-echelon systems, we can identify three
different class of papers: a). multi-echelon system, including Muckstadt et al. (1973),
Rosenbaum (1981), Cohen et al. (1986 and 1992), Sherbrooke (1992), Shtub and Simon
(1994), Hopp et al. (1999), Chang et al. (2004) and Al-Rifai and Rossetti (2007); b).
multi-echelon system with repairable items, including Gross and Pinkus (1979), Kohlas
and Pasquier (1981), Singh and Vrat (1984), Moinzadah and Lee (1986), Allbright and
Gupta (1993), Papadopoulos (1996), Diaz and Fu (1997), Sleptchenko et al. (2002 and
2005) and Wong et al. (2005); c). multi-echelon system with repairable items
considering obsolescence, including Dhakar et al. (1994), Cobbaert and Van
Oudheusden (1996), Kim et al. (1996) and Walker (1996). Spare parts obsolescence is
indeed a relevant factor in some industries, like electronics, computer and household
appliances, where product models are continuously changing and so the ability to
deliver spare parts quickly is a key aspect of after sales service (Cohen and Lee, 1990).
Most of the Modelling class contributions adopt a cost minimization approach:
customer service aspects are considered as constraints just in few papers among them
(e.g. Gross and Pinkus, 1979; Cohen et al., 1986; Kim et al., 1996; Walker, 1996; Hopp
et al., 1999; Wong et al., 2005). Instead, there is another category of specific
contributions that contain papers that try to optimize the stock level, with a fixed budget
as constraints (Rosenbaum, 1981; Kohlas and Pasquier, 1981).
All these approaches tend to share a common factor: they consider the distribution
function of demand as known and they derive optimal inventory management policies
given the environmental conditions. Especially for irregular series, to apply an
inventory management policy that fully exploits the probabilistic information produced
by the forecasting system, can deeply raise the process performances. For example, in a
household appliance context, Kalchschmidt (2002) proposes an order management
system that binds the emission of a replenishment order to the minimum probability of
occurrence estimated by the forecasting system. If the probability of occurrence of
demand peaks over the planning horizon is lower than a minimum probability of
occurrence, no orders are placed; otherwise the system releases an order for a quantity
equal to the average peak, estimated by the forecasting system.
6
A different kind of approach for spare parts management is proposed by the Continuous
Replenishment Planning (CRP) (Cavalieri et al., 2003) and the Vendor Managed
Inventory (VMI) (Persson and Saccani, 2009) policies, that modify the traditional
procedure of order generation, introducing replenishment models managed by the
supplier and based on data of actual and forecasted demand. These techniques forecast
the control, by the manufacturer, of the entire downstream logistic process, including
the control on stock in the wholesalers’ and distributors’ warehouses. Cavalieri et al.
(2003) demonstrate that CRP, applied to a real two-level distribution system of an
Italian household appliances company, outperforms both in terms of economic and
service level performances, a traditional multi-echelon inventory model.

Empirical research

Methodology
The adopted methodology consists in five case studies, characterized by six main steps:
a). a preliminary interview with managers involved in spare parts management b). a
detailed questionnaire was sent to the companies in order to collect data, c). the
questionnaire was reviewed by the authors in order to identify the main point to focus on
in the d). full day interview. After this phase of data collection, e). there is the data
elaboration of each case study and a cross case comparison, in order to identify
common criticalities and try to develop strategies for a consistent improvement,
illustrated to companies in f). the final discussion workshop, now still ongoing.

Sample description
The sample is composed of five manufacturers, operating in the heating, air
conditioning and white goods sectors, with headquarters in Italy (table 1).

Table 1 – Sample description

Business
Size Turnover
area
overall # of employees
spares management on
employees involved in
Number of employees

Overall turnover [K€]

Percentage of Italian

Percentage of spares
turnover on overall
market on overall
Air conditioning

Percentage of

turnover [%]
White goods

turnover
Heating

Company
[%]
[#]

[#]

A x 250 2,4% 39.000 58% 5,1%

B x 135 3,7% 54.000 40% 5,6%
C x 250 2,4% 65.000 70% 1,0%
D x 7.610 0,4% 1.107.000 17% 5,3%
E x 7.200 0,8% 1.200.000 16% 3,8%
Average 3.090 1,9% 493.000 40% 4,2%

For the sample firms, 56% of the total customers are small repair shops, followed at
distance by wholesalers, foreign importers, foreign branches and regional warehouses.
In almost any analyzed case, customers are very numerous and with very different sizes.
The effects on the spare parts demand is relevant, because it is deeply influenced by the
heterogeneity of customers, that tends to create a very high number of order lines for
7
very different amounts (for the same SKU, the order size ranges from a few units up to
thousands). The root causes of this phenomenon can be traced back to the existence at
the same level of the supply chain of many heterogeneous customers; in particular four
firms have a supply chain composed by two levels, while only one company in the
sample has a single-level supply chain.

Main findings

Spares analysis and classification

The case companies manage on average about 48.000 spare parts SKUs in Italy, ranging
from 1.600 to 145.000, not perfectly according to company size; in fact, the largest
company of the sample (case E) manages only 60.000 SKUs, against 145.000 SKUs of
the second largest one (case D), partially due to the different business area where they
are involved.
On average, around 14.400 items (35% of managed SKUs) are kept on stock, while
9.500 (20%) are sold in a year, and only 2% are fast movers, ranging from a maximum
value of 46% (case A) and a minimum value of case D (0,7%). This means that, on
average, there are a lot of SKUs to manage, but just few of them are characterized by an
high turnover index during a single year.
Concerning spares classification, every company except one defines different classes of
spare parts. The classification is generally technology-driven, separating mechanical
parts from electrical ones, hydraulic ones, and so on. Only one firm (company D) adopts
a specific classification linked with planning choices: the classification criteria used are
volume, value and turnover index of spare parts, through a simple ABC methodology.

Demand management
For all the sample companies, demand is considered an external variable, that is
possible to forecast, but not to influence. As a matter of fact, marketing campaigns,
partnerships with important customers and some other kind of collaborative practices
are not used in order to regulate demand, making forecasting easier.
In order to forecast demand, time series methods are used by four companies out of five;
in particular simple average (case C), weighted moving average (case B) and single
exponential smoothing (case D, E) are the adopted techniques, with a relevant
contribution of human experience. Experience is the only one adopted method for
company A, that manages a demand apparently without lumpiness.
Two firms (case A and E) forecast demand only for fast moving codes, adopting a
reactive approach (inventories) for slow movers, while the other three companies
forecast demand for each defined class of spares. In particular, company A forecasts
demand for expensive fast moving codes, without a quantitative assessment of them.
The forecasting horizon is rolling and ranges from a minimum of three (case E) to a
maximum of twelve months (cases A, B, D). As for the IT support, companies B, C and
E use a specific forecasting tool of ERP, while company D adopt an external forecasting
software, also integrated in the ERP.
In none of the analyzed companies it is possible to underline a specific approach for
irregular demand forecasting, even if, for all the analyzed companies, demand
forecasting is the most difficult phase of spare parts management process.

Inventory management
Four companies out of five (companies A, B, D, E) adopt a quantitative inventory
planning policy; in particular MRP and EOQ are the specific models used by firms.
8
Experience is the only one method for company C. Companies B and C use described
inventory methods for every codes, while the other three companies (A, D, E) try to
adopt a specific approach for different classes of spares, even if company A, that does
not adopt any spares classification, defines the more critical codes in a not-structured
way.
All the case companies except one (case B) hold safety stocks, especially for the more
critical spare parts, in most cases resorting to experience.
In two cases (D, E) IT support is provided by the company ERP, while company A uses
office automation systems and company B adopts a specific software for inventory
management.
Finally, no case company adopt any kind of collaborative practices along the supply
chain, either with suppliers or customers. Manufactures should manage stocks along the
overall supply chain, but the picture that comes out from these cases suggests that
manufacturers control only their warehouses, while from the other nodes of the supply
chain only few piece of information come back.

Comparison between theory and practice

Literature review from one side, and case-based research from the other side, suggest a
gap between the way companies actually perform spare parts demand and inventory
management and the approaches proposed in literature. Table 2 summarizes the main
elements of this gap.

Table 2 – Gap between theory and practice

Process phase Theory Practice Reasons
• Wide range of
Few criteria are used,
Multicriteria managed
Spare analysis and with classes not strictly
approaches, linked SKUs
classification related with planning
with planning choices • Inadequate IT
choices
support
Demand regulation Demand as an external • Culture
Demand
through specific variables forecasted • Lack of
actions and clustering with simple time series specific skills
planning
approaches for method without a • Complexity
demand forecasting clustering approach of theoretical
models
Planning • Data
Collaborative Simple inventory policy
choices unavailability
inventory management (EOQ, MRP), without
Inventory with global any kind of • Inadequate
planning information and collaborative approach IT support
centralized control of with the other actors of • Complexity
the supply chain the supply chain of supply
chain
governance
Integrated approach • Inadequate
Few indexes are
for demand and IT support
assessed with a non-
Performance inventory management • Limited
integrated approach and
assessment process, linked with perceptions
with a low level of
general company of possible
formalization
objectives benefits

9
Which are the main reasons of the gap between practical approaches and theoretical
ones emerging from the case studies? From our point of view, it is possible to point out:
a). External reasons, that include the complexity of theoretical models proposed in
literature and the supply chain fragmentation, difficult to manage for manufacturers that
are really far from their final customers; b). Internal reasons, which include a cultural
problem (traditionally after-sales and spare parts logistics in the companies analyzed
were less important functions and had less talented managers), deficiency of specific
planning skills, directly related with models complexity, data unavailability, often
linked with an inadequate IT support, and, as a last point, the wide range of SKUs to
manage.

Conclusion

Inventory and demand management for spare parts is different than for components
used in assembly of finished products, in reason of a larger variety (Cohen et al., 2006),
an irregular or lumpy demand (Ward, 1978), a high responsiveness required, related to
the cost of downtime (Lele, 1997), and, finally, a significant risk of stock obsolescence
(Cohen et al., 2006).
Although the subject of spare parts demand and inventory management is widely treated
by scientific literature, which proposes several approaches and mathematical models,
the managerial practice observed in the analyzed case studies (summarized in the
discussion above), seems not to “keep the pace” with theory, lacking: i.) an integrated
approach to demand and inventory planning; ii.) the use of sophisticated techniques and
iii.) a supply chain information sharing approach and the related tools.
Starting from this scenario, which are the possible levers that firms may adopt in order
to improve the spare parts management process? The empirical research presented in
this paper leads to some preliminary suggestions. First of all companies may work on
the internal reasons highlighted above, focusing on a). specific training of human
resources involved in the process, in order to bottom out culture and skills problems, b).
the improvement of IT support, in order to collect and elaborate more data that come
from field (i.e. installed base, reliability index), and finally c). the reduction of spare
parts specificity through standardization of codes, in order to have more commonalities
of codes in the range of models of finished products proposed in the market. In this way
the complexity of management inventory process reduces and becomes lower also the
risk of obsolescence.
A second major issue seems to be harder to overcome. Companies can reduce the
problem related with supply chain fragmentation, trying to focus on collaborative
practices with the other actors of the chain, with the objectives of a). improving
information feedback from the field, and b). improving materials control along the
supply chain, managing slow moving codes with a pooling policy supported by lateral
transshipments and fast movers with a continuous replenishment approach, taking the
full control of the overall spare parts management process.

10
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