Readiness based decision making: A reactive decision-making model for emergency supply of spare parts in a military scenario

Managing logistics of repair parts in the military sector involves keeping track of hundreds of thousands of items spread across multiple locations. Therefore, efficient logistical management for various and numerous forms of physical assets requires an effective computerized information system (CIS). With an efficient CIS, operation research techniques can be applied to make better decisions based on “accurate” information to optimize utilization of limited resources.; This research contributes to the literature on joint-decision sciences information technology by introducing the relationship between internal readiness and real-time information about stock position and dynamic priority setting. This research shows how this relationship may be a vehicle for developing a decision-making model that optimizes readiness in a military logistics system under emergency or shortage.; To implement this concept, we propose a general procedure framework for utilizing efficient computerized information systems as a platform for making scientific decisions. The developed approach is general in the sense that does not assume specific characteristics of the objective functions such as continuity and differentiability.; The readiness problem under consideration is one of the many real world problems that involve two types of problem difficulty: (1) It involves non-differentiable discontinuous objective functions with discrete valued decision variables that are difficult to solve by direct application of classical optimization methods. (2) It involves multiple conflicting objectives where there is no clear definition of optimum as in single-objective optimization and the final decision is the end product of a conflict resolution process guided by the preference structure of the decision maker.; In the last few decades there were many suggestions for various types of problems. But, beside the fact that approximation techniques are not commonly available and their existence is not advertised, they are problem specific and based on interactive techniques that require continuous effort from a specialist to direct the solution process. One of the operational challenges is to eliminate interaction with the operator.; The end product of this dissertation is a reactive decision making model for the current readiness problem that best fits our needs and requires minimum modifications to the existing information system.