This paper formulates a stochastic inventory model for a single-period seasonal or fashion product inventory system consisting of multiple stocking echelons in series and retailers. By transforming model, an equivalent two-stage stochastic linear program model is developed to solve this stochastic inventory problem, which makes the inventory problem easier to analyze. The optimal placement poli...

We consider an inventory distribution system consisting of one warehouse and multiple retailers. The retailers face random demand and are supplied by the warehouse. The warehouse replenishes its stock from an external supplier. The objective is to minimize the total expected replenishment, holding and backlogging cost over a finite planning horizon. The problem can be formulated as a dynamic pr...

We consider the Inventory-Routing Problem (IRP) where n geographically dispersed retailers must be supplied by a central facility. The retailers experience demand for the product at a deterministic rate, and incur holding costs for keeping inventory. Distribution is performed by a fleet of capacitated vehicles. The objective is to minimize the average transportation and inventory costs per unit...

This paper shows how to allocate a limited supply of inventory in a centralized distribution system with multiple retailers subject to minimal supply commitments and maximum delivery limits for each retailer. The objective is to maximize the number of units sold by all retailers in one time period. The analysis is done by building on a classical result of Derman. The demand at each retailer is ...

The paper analyses non-cooperative behaviour in a two-echelon decentralized supply chain, composed of one supplier and n retailers. For sufficient supply from the supplier, we build the approximate decision model of their base stock level, in which the suppliers reactions are not considered, and its non-cooperative behaviour is obtained. For insufficient supply from the supplier, much more comp...

We study a repeated newsvendor game with transshipments. In every period n retailers face a stochastic demand for an identical product and independently place their inventory orders before demand realization. After observing the actual demand, each retailer decides how much of her leftover inventory or unsatisfied demand she wants to share with the other retailers. Residual inventories are then...

In this article we address specific inventory management decisions with transportation cost consideration in a multi-level environment consisting of a supplier–warehouse–retailers. We develop two models – namely, decentralized ordering model and centralized ordering model to investigate the effect of collective ordering by retailers on the total inventory cost of the system. A numerical study s...

This paper discusses how a vendor manages multiple products within its multiple non-identical retailers operating under a vendor managed inventory (VMI) contract that allows unequal shipment frequencies to the retailers. The vendor replenishment cycle for each product is taken to be an integer multiple of the retailer replenishment cycle where vendor is penalized for exceeding the upper stock l...

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...

Retail inventory productivity is of considerable interest to retailers, manufacturers and distributors who service them, and stock market analysts. Inventory turnover is frequently used to measure inventory productivity. We find wide variation in inventory turnover across retailers and over time. The causes of this variation have not been studied systematically to our knowledge. We develop a lo...