A distribution inventory model with transshipments from a support warehouse
Author
Summary, in English
Abstract in Undetermined
This article considers a distribution inventory system consisting of N retailers and a regional support warehouse, all being replenished from a central warehouse/outside supplier. For the case where stock-outs occur, the retailers receive transshipments from the support warehouse at an extra cost. A model is presented for cost evaluation and optimization of the reorder points in the system under fill rate constraints. The solution method is designed to handle large real-life systems and is fast enough to be directly implemented in practice. A numerical study illustrates that (i) the model renders near-optimal solutions; (ii) the value of using a support warehouse can be significant even for large transshipment costs; and (iii) significant cost savings can be obtained using the proposed model. Using real data for a sample of 50 representative products, the proposed model reduces the expected holding and transshipment costs by 29% while still meeting target fill rates. [Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of IIE Transactions to view the supplemental file.]
This article considers a distribution inventory system consisting of N retailers and a regional support warehouse, all being replenished from a central warehouse/outside supplier. For the case where stock-outs occur, the retailers receive transshipments from the support warehouse at an extra cost. A model is presented for cost evaluation and optimization of the reorder points in the system under fill rate constraints. The solution method is designed to handle large real-life systems and is fast enough to be directly implemented in practice. A numerical study illustrates that (i) the model renders near-optimal solutions; (ii) the value of using a support warehouse can be significant even for large transshipment costs; and (iii) significant cost savings can be obtained using the proposed model. Using real data for a sample of 50 representative products, the proposed model reduces the expected holding and transshipment costs by 29% while still meeting target fill rates. [Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of IIE Transactions to view the supplemental file.]
Department/s
Publishing year
2013
Language
English
Pages
309-322
Publication/Series
IIE Transactions
Volume
45
Issue
3
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Topic
- Transport Systems and Logistics
Keywords
- spare parts
- Inventory
- multi-echelon
- stochastic demand
- transshipments
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0740-817X