Maintenance Enterprise Resource Planning: Information Value Among Supply Chain Elements

Maintenance Supply Chain (MSC) involves Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) organizations and the relationships within and across suppliers and customers. These organizations work with the probability of equipment failure, maintenance, and the use requirements of spare parts. All of these elements increase uncertainty in this environment. Besides, it is difficult to integrate and process information to maintain good inventory control. This high uncertainty and lack of integration of information cause spare parts inventory excesses and shortages that are used in maintenance. This research proposes a new model based on information processing theories to connect the lateral elements of the supply chain, increase vertical information and transform the MSC into a system to decrease shortages and excesses of inventory. This research will incorporate a simulation to compare the new model with traditional models of inventory control to inventory cost. This study claims that when using the new model with different demands of maintenance, inventory cost is lower than with traditional models of inventory control. The research uses information processing theory as the framework to decrease uncertainty, and consequently decrease excesses and shortages of spare parts in MSC. Introduction The 2007 United States Census showed that expenses in Repair and Maintenance Service were US$ 137 billion. In comparison, Aircraft Manufacturing sales were US$ 84 billion (United States, 2007). Fabry & Schmitz-Urban wrote that the maintenance sector in Germany had greater turnover (€ 250 billion) than many other industrial sectors, such as Vehicle Manufacturing (€ 135 billion) (Fabry & Schmitz-Urban, 2010). “American businesses