Military Essentiality of Naval Aviation Repair Parts

This paper deals with the problem of ranking items according to their worth, where each item has associated with it a vector of attributes. In particular, a ranking system is developed and tested for aviation repair parts. The objective of the study is to determine whether some items are more important than others for the accomplishment of aircraft missions. If items differ in essentiality, it is important to take such differences into account in providing logistics support. The essentiality ranking is made by generating a vector of attributes for each repair part on the basis of human judgments. These judgments are obtained using a questionnaire which explicitly establishes the ground rules for making attribute assignments. Judgmental priority rules are then applied to the vectors to rank the items. The proposed methodology was tested for four configurations of aircraft. In the course of the study, a wide dispersion in the essentiality of repair parts was found. Of equal significance, a high degree of consistency was also noted among a large number of respondents. The ranking procedure, although designed for military aircraft, has other applications, including commercial ones. Such applications are appropriate whenever budgetary or other considerations require a priority system for allocating resources, e.g., in the procurement and distribution of material stocks including repair parts.