A review of inventory management system in the South African aerospace industry

Inventory management system that aims at managing, controlling and storing of the spare parts is a cost driver for aerospace equipment in operating and maintaining those equipment. During those breakdowns, maintenance personnel spent too much time trying to find and acquire replacement parts. Requisition volume depends on instinctive feel and past experiences, with some casual meeting with the maintenance technicians manufacturing designers and specialists. Consequently, the concept of inventory management systems has become a buzz word amongst the scholar and industry practitioners. Despite the fact that, the concept of inventory management system in aerospace is attending higher level of significance within the western countries, America and Asia due to its ability of smoothing the business environment, in Africa, particularly in south Africa, the integration and adoption of inventory management system in aerospace is facing several challenges. To date, over the past decades a huge number of studies have been conducted with the aim of investigating the benefit of inventory management implementation in manufacturing as well as Aerospace industry at global level. However, very few studies have been conducted from South African aerospace industry level. Hence, the overall goal of this paper is to fill this gap by means of critically analyzing studies that were developed various inventory management frameworks over the past decade.