Service Level in After-Sales Logistics: The Role of Planning in Product Availability

These thesis explores the topic of after-sales logistics with the objective of analyzing how spare parts planning can contribute to improving service level and creating value along the supply chain. The work stems from the internship experience at Accenture Consulting, in a project aimed at optimizing the planning and inventory management processes for a major automotive manufacturer, and therefore combines a theoretical approach with a practical application in a real industrial context. The first part delves into the concept of service level as a competitive lever, presenting the main performance indicators (Fill Rate, Lead Time, Backorder and OTIF) and discussing their implications in measuring operational effectiveness. It also analyzes the influence of demand uncertainty and supplier variability on the availability of spare parts, proposing the use of predictive tools and multi-echelon inventory management strategies to improve the reactivity and responsiveness of after-sales network. The empirical section analyzes the planner's role in the operational management of a multi-echelon network and illustrates the main corrective actions introduced in the project, including the improvement of lead time reliability and the rationalization of the item portfolio through the cleanup of inactive codes ("No Longer Service" process). Through the DSI case study it is shown how a planning coordinated approach can reduce backorders and improve network stability, increasing coherence between service targets and actual availability. The overall objective of the thesis is to demonstrate how spare parts planning can evolve from a simple operational function to a strategic tool for balancing service, costs and resilience, if it is supported by reliable data, predictive technologies and cross-functional integration. From this perspective, after-sales logistics emerges as a key area for the development of sustainable and adaptive supply chain management models.