A simple heuristic for perishable item inventory control under non-stationary stochastic demand

作者：Gutierrez Alcoba Alejandro^*; Rossi Roberto; Martin Barragan Belen; Hendrix Eligius M T

来源：International Journal of Production Research, 2017, 55(7): 1885-1897.

DOI：10.1080/00207543.2016.1193248

• stochastic models
• Monte Carlo method
• Silver's heuristic
• perishable inventory control
• lot sizing

In this paper, we study the single-item single-stocking location non-stationary stochastic lot sizing problem for a perishable product. We consider fixed and proportional ordering cost, holding cost and penalty cost. The item features a limited shelf life, therefore we also take into account a variable cost of disposal. We derive exact analytical expressions to determine the expected value of the inventory of different ages. We also discuss a good approximation for the case in which the shelf-life is limited. To tackle this problem, we introduce two new heuristics that extend Silver's heuristic and compare them to an optimal Stochastic Dynamic Programming policy in the context of a numerical study. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.

• 出版日期2017