A soft computing-based approach to optimise queuing-inventory control problem

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. In this paper, a multi-product continuous review inventory control problem within batch arrival queuing approach (M Qr /M/1) is developed to find the optimal quantities of maximum inventory. The objective function is to minimise summation of ordering, holding and shortage costs under warehouse space, service level and expected lost-sales shortage cost constraints from retailer and warehouse viewpoints. Since the proposed model is Non-deterministic Polynomial-time hard, an efficient imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) is proposed to solve the model. To justify proposed ICA, both ganetic algorithm and simulated annealing algorithm are utilised. In order to determine the best value of algorithm parameters that result in a better solution, a fine-tuning procedure is executed. Finally, the performance of the proposed ICA is analysed using some numerical illustrations. 1. Introduction In inventory control problems, determining the ordering times and the order quantities of products are the two strategic decisions either to minimise total costs or to maximise total profits. The main policy of the inventory control is that, when supply and demand are not in the same size, and non-uniform, inventory is established (Breuerb and Baum 2005). In this regard, numerous research works were per-The objective of inventory management is to balance conflicting goals such as keeping stock levels down to have cash available for other purposes and having high stock levels for the continuity of the production and for providing a high service level to customers (Arda and Hennet 2006). Stochastic modelling is the application of probability theory to the description and analysis of real world phenomena. One of the most important domains in stochastic modelling is the field of queuing theory. Many real systems can be reduced to components which can be formulated by the so-called queue concept. A queue …