Newsvendor characterizations for one-warehouse multi-retailer inventory systems with discrete demand under the balance assumption

作者：Dogru Mustafa K^*; de Kok A G; van Houtum G J

来源：Central European Journal of Operations Research, 2013, 21(3): 541-559.

DOI：10.1007/s10100-012-0246-7

• Multi-echelon
• One-warehouse multi-retailer system
• Stochastic discrete demand
• Newsvendor characterizations

This paper considers a one-warehouse multi-retailer inventory system that faces discrete stochastic demand of the customers. Under the so-called balance assumption (also known as the allocation assumption), base stock policies are optimal. Our main contribution is to show that the optimal base stock levels satisfy newsvendor characterizations, which are in terms of inequalities, and to extend the newsvendor equalities known for the continuous demand model. These characterizations are appealing because they (i) are easy to explain to nonmathematical oriented people like managers and MBA students, (ii) contribute to the understanding of optimal control, (iii) help intuition development by providing direct relation between cost and optimal policy parameters.

• 出版日期2013-9