Breakdowns and system failures caused by insufficient maintenance can have huge effects and negative economic impact. Hence, the effective and efficient management of spare parts supply chains has become crucial for achieving competitive advantage in today’s more and more complex production networks. Spare part supply chains cover maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) services for machinery equipment by providing spare parts and service personnel at the required location and time. In practice, there is not a “one size fits all” spare part supply chain (SPSC), but they evolved over time and differ regarding several characteristics, e.g., organizational forms and structures, type of companies involved, collaborating processes and digitization. In order to assess how good companies are collaborating in a SPSC, e.g. a maturity model could be designed and applied.

Hence, this Bachelor thesis aims at investigating and systemizing different approaches for developing a maturity model for collaborations and coordination in spare parts supply chains. Well-established development approaches for maturity models should be researched, explained in detail, compared and assessed considering requirements from organizational and collaborative characteristics of SPSC. (The actual design of a model is not part of the scope of this Bachelor thesis.)

First, the relevant research domains and streams in literature of supply chain coordination and collaborations as well as spare parts supply chains should be investigated in order to identify specific characteristics that influence the assessment of the collaborations between companies in a SPSC. Following, a literature review in the domain of maturity models will yield insights for choosing appropriate development approaches for maturity models from the domains of Information Systems, Business Administration or Computer Science. The identified development approaches will be explained in detail and subsequently be analyzed and assessed regarding their applicability for the context and objective of this thesis based on the previously identified requirements. The approaches to be investigated could differ in general for example in rigor, formality, (empirical) validation, required data, kind of data collection etc. as well as for the identified suitable organizational and collaborative SPSC requirements. This thesis is grounded on existing research results (classifications and reviews) in the area of maturity model development.

Literature:

• Becker, Jörg; Knackstedt, Ralf; Pöppelbuß, Jens (2009): Developing Maturity Models for IT Management. A Procedure Model and its Application. In: Business & Information Systems Engineering 1 (3), S. 213–222. DOI: 10.1007/s12599-009-0044-5.
• Lahrmann, Gerrit; Marx, Frederik; Mettler, Tobias; Winter, Robert; Wortmann, Felix (2011): Inductive Design of Maturity Models. Applying the Rasch Algorithm for Design Science Research. In: David Hutchison, Takeo Kanade, Josef Kittler, Jon M. Kleinberg, Friedemann Mattern, John C. Mitchell et al. (Hg.): Service-Oriented Perspectives in Design Science Research, Bd. 6629. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg (Lecture Notes in Computer Science), S. 176–191.
• Stadtler, Hartmut; Kilger, Christoph; Meyr, Herbert (Hg.) (2015): Supply Chain Management and Advanced Planning: Springer Berlin Heidelberg (Springer Texts in Business and Economics).
• For first MRO insights: Baumbach, Michael; Stampfl, Alexander T. (2002): After-sales-Management. Marketing - Logistik - Organisation. München: Hanser (Pocket-Power Einkauf und Logistik, 118).
• Huiskonen, Janne (2001): Maintenance spare parts logistics: Special characteristics and strategic choices. In: International Journal of Production Economics 71 (1), S. 125–133.
• Wagner, S. M.; Lindemann, E. (2008): A case study-based analysis of spare parts management in the engineering industry. In: Production Planning & Control 19 (4), S. 397–407. DOI: 10.1080/09537280802034554.