A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, School of Engineering and Technology

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1981

In this research, a feasibility study for computerization of aircraft spare parts inventory system is conducted. Bangladesh Biman (Bangladesh Airlines) is chosen to be the reference Airlines for the study. The existing spare parts system of Bangladesh Biman (Biman) is manually operated. An investigation into the organization structure and the procedure followed is made and the existing and anticipated problems were identified. On that basis, it appeared that computerization of the system might be useful. Comparisons are made among three alternatives: (i) improvement in the existing manual system, (ii) in-house computerized batch processing, and (iii) computerization by commercially available software packages on inventory system. Package selection is found to be more suitable for the purpose. In the next step, 7 packages are studied, 4 of which are being used by different airlines. Out of these packages, 5 are rejected on the basis of technical, economic, and environmental feasibilities. The remaining two packages, MAPICS and TOPAS, are considered for further study. A detailed comparison is made between MAPICS and TOPAS. MAPICS was found to be a clearly superior one for Biman. A cost-benefit analysis is made for MAPICS implementation and it is found to be economically justified. A brief outline is given for MAPICS implementation for Biman's spare parts inventory system. A low cost manual part backup is also suggested.