A Proposed Improved Replacement Policy for Army Vehicles

The British Army currently uses a replacement policy for non-armoured vehicles which employs age-based repair limits derived by a sensible but rather arbitrary method. The paper describes how a proposed improved replacement policy was devised: one which uses extensive data to compute optimum age-based repair limits and allows these limits to be adjusted for vehicles having exceptionally high and low mileages. The feasibility of a resale type of policy for some vehicles is examined.After a general introduction, the model is described in detail. There follows an account of how the assumptions of the model were tested. Then the results are presented and discussed, in particular the savings to be expected from implementing the improved policy. Finally, the proposals are described which have now been approved by Army staff and are to be submitted to the Treasury.