Optimal maintenance and replacement decisions under technological change with consideration of spare parts inventories

Classical spare parts inventory models assume that the same vintage of technology will be utilized throughout the planning horizon. However, asset replacement often occurs in the form of a new technology that renders existing spare parts inventories obsolete. This paper aims to study the impact of spare parts inventory on equipment maintenance and replacement decisions under technological change via a Markov decision process formulation. The replacement decision is complex in that one must decide with which technology available on the market to replace the current asset. Under technological change, it is shown that the do nothing and repair options have significantly more value as they allow waiting the appearance of even better technologies in the future. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.