Optimizing inventory levels in a two-echelon retailer system with partial lost sales

Optimizing inventory levels in a two-echelon retailer system with partial lost sales

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Article ID: iaor19942123
Country: United States
Volume: 40
Issue: 5
Start Page Number: 582
End Page Number: 596
Publication Date: May 1994
Journal: Management Science
Authors: ,
Keywords: distribution, probability
Abstract:

This paper considers a retailer inventory system with N first-echelon stores and a single second-echelon distribution center (DC). Customer demands at the stores are assumed to be random. When a stockout occurs, customers are willing to wait for their order to be filled with a known probability. Customers who are unwilling to wait result in lost sales. The first and second echelons are both restocked at fixed, equally spaced time points, where the store restocking frequency is an integer multiple of the DC restocking frequency. The authors also assume that replenishment quantities at both echelons can be adjusted up to the time of delivery, resulting in replenishment lead times equal to zero. This simplification allows them to determine optimal solutions for the partial lost sales case, which has proven intractable for two-echelon formulations with lead times. Computational results are given for illustrative examples.

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