A multi-level production-inventory-distribution system under mixed make to stock, make to order, and vendor managed inventory strategies: An application in the pulp and paper industry

In today's competitive environment, most companies tend to adopt a hybrid manufacturing strategy to provide more reliable services to a wide range of customers. Based on a real-world case study, we investigate a customer-wise production-inventory-distribution system in a multi-level supply chain. Within this system, at a tactical planning level, the decision concerning the production strategies including make to stock (MTS), make to order (MTO), or vendor managed inventory (VMI) strategy, to choose for each customer is made, and then at the operational planning level, the production, inventory, and distribution activities are coordinated according to the strategy assigned to the customers. The objective is to optimize the total cost while the VMI customers are timely satisfied and the target service level for MTO customers is respected. Furthermore, the purchase acceptance rate for MTS customers can be controlled to enhance capacity utilization. We develop a rolling horizon planning approach to deal with the dynamics of customers' demands under different forecasting scenarios. We perform numerical experiments under both static and rolling horizons based on adapted data from a real-world application from a Canadian pulp and paper industry. The results reveal that customers placing smaller orders are classified within the VMI strategy to mitigate potential delays. Conversely, MTS customers are predominantly characterized by larger order quantities. A sensitivity analysis of key problem parameters demonstrates that the backorder cost for MTO customers can effectively influence the strategy allocation. Moreover, our results underscore the notable influence of sales prices on the distribution of customers among strategies.