Maintenance, Repair, and Operations Parts Inventory Management in the Era of Industry 4.0

Abstract

This paper discusses challenges in traditional Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO) parts inventory management and how industry 4.0 technologies can be leveraged to address them. Additive manufacturing, Internet of Things (IoT), big data analytics, machine learning, and new smart mobility logistics models are emerging technologies that enable efficient inventory solutions for different types of MRO parts. There is no single universal strategy works for all MRO parts due to wide variety of usage patterns and other attributes. In this paper we propose the clustering of MRO parts into different groups and discuss the potential strategy to improve inventory efficiency by leveraging emerging technologies for each MRO part group.