A new heuristic to solve the one-warehouse N-retailer problem

作者：Abdul Jalbar Beatriz; Segerstedt Anders^*; Sicilia Joaquin; Nilsson Andreas

来源：Computers & Operations Research, 2010, 37(2): 265-272.

DOI：10.1016/j.cor.2009.04.012

• Supply chain management
• Two-echelon inventory system
• Integer-ratio policies

we deal with a multi-echelon inventory system in which one warehouse supplies an item to multiple retailers. Customer demand arrives at each retailer at a constantrate. The retailers replenish their inventories from the warehouse that in turn orders from an outside supplier. It is assumed that shortages are not allowed and lead times are negligible. The goal is to determine replenishment policies that minimize the overall cost in the system. we develop a heuristic to compute efficient policies, which also can easily be used in a spreadsheet application. The main idea consists of finding a balance between the replenishment and the inventory holding costs at each installation. This new heuristic we compare with two other approaches proposed in the literature; the computational studies show that in most of the instances generated the new method provides lower costs.

• 出版日期2010-2