IBM Spare Parts

IBM s Optimizer [14] is a system for optimizing spare parts required by installed population of IBM products that exceeds tens of millions. The system tracks 200,000 part numbers and 15 million SKUs. It is used by over 15,000 customer engineers (CEs) that call in part requests. The parts may be delivered to the customer site before or after the CE arrives, the CE may use parts stored on the customer premise, or the CEs may carry a limited number of parts. The system was intended to minimize the overall inventory and transport cost while maintaining the part availability level (PAL) as specified by the service contracts. 

The Optimizer model started with modeling the impact of individual part availability on the availability of a set of parts, all of which may be required to fix a customer s problem. The associated service level is called the technology component group s (TCG) service level. The 

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