Spare Parts Demand Forecasting And Inventory Management Of Shanghai Central Warehouse Of A Automobile Manufacturer

In recent years,with the continuous improvement of people’s economic level and the pursuit of higher quality of life,China’s residents’ car ownership is showing a rapid growth trend.Nowadays,China has become the largest producer and consumer of automobiles in the world,and has become the focus of global attention and investment.It is in the context of such a continuous increase in the production and ownership of cars that the demand for automotive spare parts is rising.On the other hand,the degree of competition in the automotive industry is increasing due to the entry of new competitors.Under such circumstance,in order to gain competitive advantages,companies not only need to achieve technological innovation and quality assurance,but also ensure effectively meet customers’ demands and reduce costs as much as possible,therefore improving the level of spare parts inventory management becomes an essential way to reduce costs.In order to achieve the timely supply of spare parts,companies usually employ the method of setting up spare parts inventory,so as to buffer the fluctuation and uncertainty between supply and demand.Scientific and reasonable spare parts inventory can not only ensure the timely supply of spare parts,realize the rapid repair of vehicles,and thus improve customer satisfaction.It can also effectively reduce inventory costs and reduce the risk of capital occupation.In order to speed up the supply of self-produced and purchased spare parts nationwide,Auto A has set up spare parts central warehouses in Beijing,Kunming and Shanghai,respectively.Among them,Shanghai central warehouse is mainly responsible for the supply of spare parts in Shanghai and the surrounding areas such as Jiangsu,Anhui and Zhejiang.However,Shanghai central warehouse in actual operation often suffers from inventory management problems,that is some kinds of spare parts inventory backlog serious,whereas some out of stock.This not only leads to high inventory costs,but also reduces customer satisfaction.This work takes the Shanghai central warehouse of automobile factory A as the research object,and investigates the main causes of the problems behind the high out-of-stock rate and the backlog of some spare parts in the warehouse,for example,the demand forecasting method is not scientific and accurate,and the inventory classification method is not reasonable.To address theese problems,this work develops an optimization model for the enterprise through investigations and expert interviews.In terms of demand forecasting,this work proposes to first distinguish spare parts into smooth spare parts and non-smooth spare parts by conducting stability test,and then employs Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average Mode and Light Gradient Boosting Machine model to forecasting sales and demand,respectively.In this work,by examining the 22 spare parts in the Shanghai central warehouse of automobile factory A,it is verified that the proposed model has achieved good prediction accuracy for both smooth and non-smooth spare parts,and so that can provide scientific and reasonable guidances for the subsequent stocking work.In terms of inventory management,this work proposes a new ABC classification of spare parts in its Shanghai central warehouse by integrating the two factors of spare parts value and the predicted demand,and then formulates a reasonable inventory management system for each category to further improve the inventory management level of the company.