Optimal ordering decisions with returns and excess inventory

Recycling is one of the most efficient ways to protect our environment. In recent years, inventory management with product returns has drawn attention from many researchers. This study considers a two-echelon inventory system with returns and shortage backordering, and its objective is to minimize the total cost of the system. In addition, we examine a situation when stock increases will result in more consumption. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the theory.     

An optimal solution technique to the single-vendor multi-buyer integrated inventory supply chain by incorporating some realistic factors

This paper develops two generalized integrated inventory models to deliver a single product from a vendor to multiple buyers. To minimize the total cost of set up, ordering, inventory holding and transportation, the production flow is synchronized by transferring the lot with equal and/or unequal (either all are equal or all are unequal or a combination of equal and unequal) sized batches (sub-lots), each of which incurs a transportation cost. For easy implementation of the models, we relax some unrealistic assumptions in the existing models such as unlimited capacities of the transport equipment and buyers’ storage, insignificant set up and transportation times, unlimited lead time and batch sizes. A common optimal solution technique to the models is derived and their performances are analyzed. Potential significances of the solution method are highlighted with solutions of some numerical problems. The importance of the relaxed factors and limitation of the models are discussed.     

Customer differentiated end-of-life inventory problem

This paper deals with the service parts end-of-life inventory problem in a circumstance that demands for service parts are differentiated. Customer differentiation might be due to criticality of the demand or based on various service contracts. In both cases, we model the problem as a finite horizon stochastic dynamic program and characterize the structure of the optimal inventory policy. We show that when customers are differentiated based on the demand criticality then the optimal structure consists of time and state dependent threshold levels for inventory rationing. In case of differentiation based on service contracts, we show that in addition to rationing thresholds we also need contract extension thresholds by which the system decides whether to offer an extension to an expiring contract or not. By numerical experiments in both cases, we identify the value of incorporating such decisions in service parts end-of-life inventory management with customer differentiation. Moreover, we show that these decisions not only result in cost efficiency but also decrease the risk of part obsolescence drastically.     

基于EDI交易的随机存储策略模型

利用数学建模的方法 ,研究了电子商务环境下的最优库存控制问题     

顾客部分延期付款下两级商业信用易腐品订货策略

针对易腐品的经济订货批量问题展开研究。在供应商给零售商提供延迟还款的同时,零售商也给顾客提供部分延期还款条件。分五种情况分别讨论零售商的成本构成,并由此建立数学模型以求解最优订货周期使得零售商单位时间总成本最小化。通过数学证明得到了目标函数的解析性质,结果显示每种情况下在可行域范围内至多存在一个极小值点。以此为基础给出了相应的命题以有效地确定零售商的最优决策。最后通过数值算例说明了模型的有效性。     

An asymptotic approach for a semi‐Markovian inventory model of type (s,S)

In this study, we constructed a stochastic process (X(t)) that expresses a semi‐Markovian inventory model of type (s, S) and it is shown that this process is ergodic under some weak conditions. Moreover, we obtained exact and asymptotic expressions for the n^th order moments (n = 1,2,3, … ) of ergodic distribution of the process X(t), as S ? s → ∞ . Finally, we tested how close the obtained approximation formulas are to the exact expressions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of boundary transfer method in simulation of gas–solid turbulent flow of a riser

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used to simulate the behavior of two phase gas solid in a fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) riser. Gas and particle phases are considered as separate fully interpenetrating continuous media within each control volume. Each phase described in terms of its own separate mass and momentum conservation equations. Simple k–epsilon (k_g–?_g) turbulence model is used for the gas phase and the solid phase is handled with the kinetic theory of granular flows. Source terms are used to account for the influence of hydrodynamic drag on the production, dissipation and exchange of turbulent kinetic energy between the phases. For the particles partial slip condition is considered at the wall.     

A distributed coordination mechanism for supply networks with asymmetric information

The paper analyses the problem of coordination in supply networks of multiple retailers and a single supplier, where partners have asymmetric, private information of demand and costs. After stating generic requirements like distributedness, truthfulness, efficiency and budget balance, we use the apparatus of mechanism design to devise a coordination mechanism that guarantees the above properties in the network. The resulting protocol is a novel realisation of the widely used Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) where the responsibility of planning is at the supplier. We prove that together with the required generic properties a fair sharing of risks and benefits cannot be guaranteed. We illustrate the general mechanism with a detailed discussion of a specialised version, assuming that inventory planning is done according to the newsvendor model, and explore the operation of this protocol through computational experiments.     

Managing an integrated production inventory system with information on the production and demand status and multiple non-unitary demand classes

In this paper, we study a system consisting of a manufacturer or supplier serving several retailers or clients. The manufacturer produces a standard product in a make-to-stock fashion in anticipation of orders emanating from n retailers with different contractual agreements hence ranked/prioritized according to their importance. Orders from the retailers are non-unitary and have sizes that follow a discrete distribution. The total production time is assumed to follow a k₀-Erlang distribution. Order inter-arrival time for class l demand is assumed to follow a k_l-Erlang distribution. Work-in-process as well as the finished product incur a, per unit per unit of time, carrying cost. Unsatisfied units from an order from a particular demand class are assumed lost and incur a class specific lost sale cost. The objective is to determine the optimal production and inventory allocation policies so as to minimize the expected total (discounted or average) cost. We formulate the problem as a Markov decision process and show that the optimal production policy is of the base-stock type with base-stock levels non-decreasing in the demand stages. We also show that the optimal inventory allocation policy is a rationing policy with rationing levels non-decreasing in the demand stages. We also study several important special cases and provide, through numerical experiments, managerial insights including the effect of the different sources of variability on the operating cost and the benefits of such contracts as Vendor Managed Inventory or Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment. Also, we show that a heuristic that ignores the dependence of the base-stock and rationing levels on the demands stages can perform very poorly compared to the optimal policy.     

An integrated inventory model with controllable lead time and distribution‐free demand

The impact of lead time reduction on an integrated periodic review inventory system comprising a single vendor and multiple buyers with a step crashing cost function and service‐level constraints is studied. The probability distribution of demand during the protection period for each buyer is unknown, but the mean and the variance are given. Each production lot of the vendor can be delivered in a number of shipments to all buyers. A minimax distribution‐free procedure with Lagrange multipliers is applied to determining the lead time, the common shipment cycle time, the target levels of replenishments and the number of shipments per production cycle so that the expected total system cost is minimized. Numerical experiments along with sensitivity analysis were performed to illustrate the effects of parameters on the decision and the total system cost. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.