Inventory centralization and decentralization in spare parts supply chain configuration: a bibliometric review

In recent decades, the scientific literature has underlined the difficulties in configuring spare parts Supply Chains (SCs) due to the need of minimizing inventory stocks, while facing demand unpredictability and ensuring high service levels. When dealing with spare parts retail companies, it is essential to establish the optimal SC configuration. Indeed, aligning spare parts storage and distribution activities with customer needs ensures customer satisfaction, increased sales profits, and efficient company performance. Configuring spare parts SCs implies performing two tasks. First, defining the deployment strategies of spare parts into Distribution Centers (DCs), choosing between antithetical solutions such as centralization or decentralization. Then, establishing inventory control policies for each item in each DC, planning how many stocks to supply and how often. Regarding the task of establishing the spare parts supply, several contributions have been provided by the literature, proposing methods and tools to control inventories in a single DC. Conversely, against expectations, the literature overlooks the task of planning the spare parts deployment. Indeed, although the different characteristics of centralized or decentralized SCs are known since the 1960s, a few studies have been provided to support spare parts retailers in choosing between centralization and decentralization. In this context, the present paper offers a bibliometric review carried out with a Systematic Literature Network Analysis (SLNA) on the topic of spare parts deployment in SC configuration and the choice between centralization and decentralization. The proposed bibliometric review is useful to understand the state of the art in the analyzed domain, also identifying the top contributing research studies. As a result, descriptive metrics on the retrieved papers are provided to give an overview of the current body of knowledge and lay the foundations for define possible gaps and future research activities.