In this paper, we examine the issue of order coordination between a supplier and multiple retailers in a decentralized multi-echelon inventory/distribution system where the supplier provides a product to multiple retailers who experience static demand and standard inventory costs. Specifically, we propose and analyze a new policy where a manufacturer, who outsources production to an OEM, offers...

vendor managed inventory is a continuous replenishment program that is designed to provide major cost saving benefits for both vendors and retailers. previous research on this area mainly included single objective optimization models where the objective is to minimize the total supply chain costs or to maximize the total supply chain benefits. this paper presents a bi-objective mathematical mod...

Motivated by real-life spare parts networks, we introduce a new spare parts inventory model with lateral transshipment. We consider a multi-item, multi-location, single-echelon system with base stock control and aggregate mean waiting time constraints. The local warehouses are divided into two types: main and regular local warehouses. Lateral transshipment is allowed from main local warehouses ...

s-This paper further extends the existing cost model for a fixed-life perishable product in a two-echelon inventory problem into the net profit model. The extended model is subsequently evaluated by comparing its results with those obtained from OptQuest, a commercial simulationoptimization package. Within a limited but reasonable time, the comparative results do not show a significant improvem...

The effective management of supply chains depends upon the ability of decision makers to control inventory while maintaining customer service at low cost. This paper examines an analytical model for the two-echelon one warehouse and multiple retailers system using (R, Q) inventory policies. A simulation model was developed to analyze the performance of the analytical model under conditions that...

Nowadays, Companies have to deal with an uncertain demand which is more difficult to handle when it has a non-stationary pattern. Simultaneous decrease of customer service and increase of stock costs are the most significant effects of such demand uncertainty. To deal with this issue, inventory optimization models must be adapted to cover a multi-echelon network structure and to consider altern...

The competitive market and declined economy have increased the relevant importance of making supply chain network efficient. This has created many motivations to reduce the cost of services, and simultaneously, to increase the quality of them. The network as a tri-echelon one consists of Suppliers, Warehouses or Distribution Centers (DCs), and Retailer nodes. To bring the problem closer to real...

We study a class of two echelon, serial systems with identical ordering capacities or limits for both echelons. For the case where the lead time to the upstream echelon is one period, the optimality of state-dependent, modified echelon base-stock policies is proved using a decomposition approach. For the case where the upstream lead time is two periods, we introduce a new class of policies call...