Operational improvement of an industrial equipment rental system using discrete event simulation

Simulation modelling offers a great potential for modelling and analyzing business processes and, therefore, reduce the risk associated with business process change. This paper presents a study of the use of discrete event simulation to improve the operational performance of equipment rental businesses. With the purpose of reducing the turndowns due to the lack of equipment, several inventory level scenarios and maintenance management rules were tested. Simulation results show that better performance indicators are possible even without financial investment. Simulation has proved to be a powerful tool to improve the decision making by allowing to quantify the relationship between inventory levels, repair activities and turndowns.