Managing Spare Parts at the US Coast Guard

Chapters on coordination provides a description of the spare parts inventory supply chain at the US Coast Guard (USCG) [27]. We summarize the specific features of the spare parts system and the changes made to improve performance. The main supply chain support for air assets for the Coast Guard is the Aircraft Repair and Supply Center (ARSC) located in Elizabeth City, NC. Aircraft failures in the airstations are often tracked to part failures. Those parts are replaced with working parts from field inventory at the air station and the salvageable broken components are shipped to ARSC for repair. In turn, ARSC replenishes field inventory. 

Item Managers (IMs) at USCG were responsible provision of service parts, with an IM responsible for a group of parts. Typically, IMs used a part s demand history and treated demand for a part as an independent event. They chose a sufficient inventory level to satisfy demand, using ad hoc rules, developed through years of experience, to run the system. Officers at the USCG wanted to devise a scheme to use ACMS maintenance information to improve performance. 

Failed parts Good parts Resupply order 

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