Optimal Ordering Policies for Inventory Problems With Dynamic Information Delays

Information delays exist when the most recent inventory information available to the Inventory Manager (IM) is dated. In other words, the IM observes only the inventory level that belongs to an earlier period. Such situations are not uncommon, and they arise when it takes a while to process the demand data and pass the results to the IM. We introduce dynamic information delays as a Markov process into the standard multiperiod stochastic inventory problem with backorders. We develop the concept of a reference inventory position. We show that this position along with the magnitude of the latest observed delay and the age of this observation are sufficient statistics for finding the optimal order quantities. Furthermore, we establish that the optimal ordering policy is of state‐dependent base‐stock type with respect to the reference inventory position (or state‐dependent (s, S) type if there is a fixed ordering cost). The optimal base stock and (s, S) levels depend on the magnitude of the latest observed delay and the age of this observation. Finally, we study the sensitivity of the optimal base stock and the optimal cost with respect to the sufficient statistics.     

基于CPFR的多产品分销系统库存优化模型

本文中的分销系统由生产多种产品的多个制造商,一个地区分销中心DC,多个零售商所组成,系统采用基于CPFR来确定订货临界点,并且在假设DC和零售商都实行连续性盘点的(R,Q)库存控制策略,提前期为随机变量,零售商需求为泊松分布的前提下,以整个分销系统的库存成本最小化为目标函数,以DC和零售商的多产品服务水平为约束条件,通过确定最佳订货批量,建立了此多产品分销系统的库存优化模型,从而达到有效控制库存的目的.     

定期信用支付条件下的多阶段货价变动型存贮问题

本文研究了定期信用支付条件下的多阶段货价变动型存贮问题,得到了最优订购策略并设计了算法以说明模型的使用。     

物流企业参与下的库存质押融资中的委托代理问题研究

本文在分析物流企业参与下的库存质押融资中银行与企业的收益的基础上,给出了银行和企业的委托代理模型,确定了代理成本。通过对比在信息对称和信息不对称情况下,投资激励与物流企业监管下银行的收益,确定了物流企业在库存质押融资中的监管程度的取值范围,说明了物流企业在这一融资模式中的作用,给出了各方由于信息不对称而付出的成本费用。     

LR型模糊需求下连续盘点库存策略研究

本文研究了LR型模糊需求下缺货需补的连续盘点库存优化问题。基于可信性理论,建立了成本最小化的库存模型和两种服务水平下的库存分析模型,给出了其求解方法,并将成本和服务水平两方面进行综合获得最优库存策略。最后的算例分析,数值比较了不同模型下的库存策略。     

易变质产品在带运输时间的二级供应链中的订购策略研究

研究了带运输时间的易变质产品的二级供应链库存模型。在有限计划期内,为补充下游分销商发出的订单,上游制造商以一定的生产速率进行生产。由于产品运输给分销商时需要花费时间与成本,在开始一段时间内分销商的订单得不到及时补充,只有当制造商的库存量达到最大时,才将产品运输给分销商。目标就是确定最优订购策略使得整个系统的总成本最小。通过分析成本函数的特点,证明了2种特殊情形下最优解的存在及唯一性。最后通过算例验证了最优策略的有效性。     

An Efficient and Robust Design for Transshipment Networks

Transshipment, the sharing of inventory among parties at the same echelon level of a supply chain, can be used to reduce costs. The effectiveness of transshipment is in part determined by the configuration of the transshipment network. We introduce chain configurations in transshipment settings, where every party is linked in one connected loop. Under simplifying assumptions we show analytically that the chain configuration is superior to configurations suggested in the literature. In addition, we demonstrate the efficiency and robustness of chain configurations for more general scenarios and provide managerial insights regarding preferred configurations for different problem parameters.     

Shelf Space Management When Demand Depends on the Inventory Level

Two factors that their influence on the demand has been investigated in many papers are (i) the shelf space allocated to a product and to its complement or supplement products and (ii) the instantaneous inventory level seen by customers. Here we analyze the joint shelf space allocation and inventory decisions for multiple items with demand that depends on both factors. The traditional approach to solve inventory models with a state‐dependent demand rate uses a time domain approach. However, this approach often does not lead to closed‐form expressions for the profit rate with both dependencies. We analyze the problem in the inventory domain via level crossing theory. This approach leads to closed‐form expressions for a large set of demand rate functions exhibiting both dependencies. These closed‐form expressions substantially simplify the search for optimal solutions; thus we use them to solve the joint inventory control and shelf space allocation problem. We consider examples with two products to investigate the significance of capturing both demand dependencies. We show that in some settings it is important to capture both dependencies. We consider two heuristics, each one of them ignores one of the two dependencies. Using these heuristics it seems that ignoring the dependency on the shelf space might be less harmful than ignoring the dependency on the inventory level, which, based on computational results, can lead to profit losses of more than 6%. We demonstrate that retailers should use their operational control, e.g., reorder point, to promote higher demand products.     

Experimental Results Indicating Lattice‐Dependent Policies May Be Optimal for General Assemble‐To‐Order Systems

We consider an assemble‐to‐order (ATO) system with multiple products, multiple components which may be demanded in different quantities by different products, possible batch ordering of components, random lead times, and lost sales. We model the system as an infinite‐horizon Markov decision process under the average cost criterion. A control policy specifies when a batch of components should be produced, and whether an arriving demand for each product should be satisfied. Previous work has shown that a lattice‐dependent base‐stock and lattice‐dependent rationing (LBLR) policy is an optimal stationary policy for a special case of the ATO model presented here (the generalized M‐system). In this study, we conduct numerical experiments to evaluate the use of an LBLR policy for our general ATO model as a heuristic, comparing it to two other heuristics from the literature: a state‐dependent base‐stock and state‐dependent rationing (SBSR) policy, and a fixed base‐stock and fixed rationing (FBFR) policy. Remarkably, LBLR yields the globally optimal cost in each of more than 22,500 instances of the general problem, outperforming SBSR and FBFR with respect to both objective value (by up to 2.6% and 4.8%, respectively) and computation time (by up to three orders and one order of magnitude, respectively) in 350 of these instances (those on which we compare the heuristics). LBLR and SBSR perform significantly better than FBFR when replenishment batch sizes imperfectly match the component requirements of the most valuable or most highly demanded product. In addition, LBLR substantially outperforms SBSR if it is crucial to hold a significant amount of inventory that must be rationed.     

Building Supply Chain Resilience through Virtual Stockpile Pooling

Stockpiling inventory is an essential strategy for building supply chain resilience. It enables firms to continue operating while finding a solution to an unexpected event that causes a supply disruption or demand surge. While extremely valuable when actually deployed, stockpiles incur large holding costs and usually provide no benefits until such a time. To help to reduce this cost, this study presents a new approach for managing stockpiles. We show that if leveraged intelligently, stockpiles can also help an organization better meet its own regular demand by enabling a type of virtual pooling we call virtual stockpile pooling (VSP). The idea of VSP is to first integrate the stockpile into several locations’ regular inventory buffers and then dynamically reallocate the stockpile among these locations in reaction to the demand realizations to achieve a kind of virtual transshipment. To study how to execute VSP and determine when it can provide the most value, we formulate a stylized multi‐location stochastic inventory model and solve for the optimal stockpile allocation and inventory order policies. We show that VSP can provide significant cost savings: in some cases nearly the full holding cost of the stockpile (i.e., VSP effectively maintains the stockpile for free), in other cases nearly the savings of traditional physical inventory pooling. Last, our results prescribe implementing VSP with many locations for large stockpiles, but only a few locations for small stockpiles.