IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v211y2011i2p298-309.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evaluation of stock allocation policies in a divergent inventory system with shipment consolidation

Author

Listed:
  • Howard, Christian
  • Marklund, Johan

Abstract

In this paper we consider a one-warehouse N-retailer inventory system characterized by access to real-time point-of-sale data, and a time based dispatching and shipment consolidation policy at the warehouse. More precisely, inventory is reviewed continuously, while a consolidated shipment (for example, a truck) to all retailers is dispatched from the warehouse at regular time intervals. The focus is on investigating the cost benefits of using state-dependent myopic allocation policies instead of a simple FCFS (First-Come-First-Serve) rule to allocate shipped goods to the retailers. The analysis aims to shed some light on when, if ever, FCFS is a reasonable policy to use in this type of system? The FCFS allocations of items to retailers are determined by the sequence in which retailer orders (or equivalently customer demands) arrive to the warehouse. Applying the myopic policy enables the warehouse to postpone the allocation decision to the moment of shipment (from the warehouse) or the moments of delivery (to the different retailers), and to base it on the inventory information available at those times. The myopic allocation method we study is often used in the literature on periodic review systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Howard, Christian & Marklund, Johan, 2011. "Evaluation of stock allocation policies in a divergent inventory system with shipment consolidation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 211(2), pages 298-309, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:211:y:2011:i:2:p:298-309
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377-2217(10)00810-6
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew J. Clark & Herbert Scarf, 2004. "Optimal Policies for a Multi-Echelon Inventory Problem," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(12_supple), pages 1782-1790, December.
    2. Özalp Özer, 2003. "Replenishment Strategies for Distribution Systems Under Advance Demand Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(3), pages 255-272, March.
    3. Gérard P. Cachon & Marshall Fisher, 2000. "Supply Chain Inventory Management and the Value of Shared Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(8), pages 1032-1048, August.
    4. Kamran Moinzadeh, 2002. "A Multi-Echelon Inventory System with Information Exchange," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(3), pages 414-426, March.
    5. van der Heijden, M. C. & Diks, E. B. & de Kok, A. G., 1997. "Stock allocation in general multi-echelon distribution systems with (R, S) order-up-to-policies," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 157-174, April.
    6. Stephen C. Graves, 1996. "A Multiechelon Inventory Model with Fixed Replenishment Intervals," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(1), pages 1-18, January.
    7. Verrijdt, J. H. C. M. & de Kok, A. G., 1996. "Distribution planning for a divergent depotless two-echelon network under service constraints," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 341-354, March.
    8. Awi Federgruen & Paul Zipkin, 1984. "Approximations of Dynamic, Multilocation Production and Inventory Problems," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(1), pages 69-84, January.
    9. Johan Marklund, 2006. "Controlling Inventories in Divergent Supply Chains with Advance-Order Information," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 54(5), pages 988-1010, October.
    10. Cetinkaya, Sila & Mutlu, Fatih & Lee, Chung-Yee, 2006. "A comparison of outbound dispatch policies for integrated inventory and transportation decisions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 171(3), pages 1094-1112, June.
    11. Sven Axsäter & Johan Marklund, 2008. "Optimal Position-Based Warehouse Ordering in Divergent Two-Echelon Inventory Systems," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 56(4), pages 976-991, August.
    12. Forsberg, Rolf, 1997. "Exact evaluation of (R, Q)-policies for two-level inventory systems with Poisson demand," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 130-138, January.
    13. van Houtum, G. J. & Inderfurth, K. & Zijm, W. H. M., 1996. "Materials coordination in stochastic multi-echelon systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 1-23, November.
    14. Ki Ling Cheung & Hau L. Lee, 2002. "The Inventory Benefit of Shipment Coordination and Stock Rebalancing in a Supply Chain," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(2), pages 300-306, February.
    15. Mustafa Çagri Gürbüz & Kamran Moinzadeh & Yong-Pin Zhou, 2007. "Coordinated Replenishment Strategies in Inventory/Distribution Systems," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(2), pages 293-307, February.
    16. Forsberg, Rolf, 1995. "Optimization of order-up-to-S policies for two-level inventory systems with compound Poisson demand," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 143-153, February.
    17. Sven Axsäter & Johan Marklund & Edward A. Silver, 2002. "Heuristic Methods for Centralized Control of One-Warehouse, N-Retailer Inventory Systems," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 4(1), pages 75-97, October.
    18. Çetinkaya, SIla & Bookbinder, James H., 2003. "Stochastic models for the dispatch of consolidated shipments," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 747-768, September.
    19. Peter L. Jackson, 1988. "Stock Allocation in a Two-Echelon Distribution System Or "What to Do Until Your Ship Comes In"," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(7), pages 880-895, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. de Kok, Ton & Grob, Christopher & Laumanns, Marco & Minner, Stefan & Rambau, Jörg & Schade, Konrad, 2018. "A typology and literature review on stochastic multi-echelon inventory models," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 269(3), pages 955-983.
    2. Ülkü, M. Ali & Bookbinder, James H., 2012. "Optimal quoting of delivery time by a third party logistics provider: The impact of shipment consolidation and temporal pricing schemes," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 221(1), pages 110-117.
    3. Satır, Benhür & Erenay, Fatih Safa & Bookbinder, James H., 2018. "Shipment consolidation with two demand classes: Rationing the dispatch capacity," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 270(1), pages 171-184.
    4. Berling, Peter & Eng-Larsson, Fredrik, 2016. "Pricing and timing of consolidated deliveries in the presence of an express alternative: Financial and environmental analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 250(2), pages 590-601.
    5. F. Kleintje-Ell & G. Kiesmüller, 2015. "Cost minimising order schedules for a capacitated inventory system," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 229(1), pages 501-520, June.
    6. Olof Stenius & Ayşe Gönül Karaarslan & Johan Marklund & A. G. de Kok, 2016. "Exact Analysis of Divergent Inventory Systems with Time-Based Shipment Consolidation and Compound Poisson Demand," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(4), pages 906-921, August.
    7. Jana Ralfs & Gudrun P. Kiesmüller, 2022. "Inventory management with advance demand information and flexible shipment consolidation," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 44(4), pages 1009-1044, December.
    8. Andersson, Jonas & Malmberg, Filip & Marklund, Johan, 2023. "Exact analysis of One-Warehouse-Multiple-Retailer inventory systems with quantity restricted deliveries," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 309(3), pages 1161-1172.
    9. Stenius, Olof & Marklund, Johan & Axsäter, Sven, 2018. "Sustainable multi-echelon inventory control with shipment consolidation and volume dependent freight costs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 267(3), pages 904-916.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Olof Stenius & Ayşe Gönül Karaarslan & Johan Marklund & A. G. de Kok, 2016. "Exact Analysis of Divergent Inventory Systems with Time-Based Shipment Consolidation and Compound Poisson Demand," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(4), pages 906-921, August.
    2. de Kok, Ton & Grob, Christopher & Laumanns, Marco & Minner, Stefan & Rambau, Jörg & Schade, Konrad, 2018. "A typology and literature review on stochastic multi-echelon inventory models," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 269(3), pages 955-983.
    3. Stenius, Olof & Marklund, Johan & Axsäter, Sven, 2018. "Sustainable multi-echelon inventory control with shipment consolidation and volume dependent freight costs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 267(3), pages 904-916.
    4. Andersson, Jonas & Malmberg, Filip & Marklund, Johan, 2023. "Exact analysis of One-Warehouse-Multiple-Retailer inventory systems with quantity restricted deliveries," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 309(3), pages 1161-1172.
    5. Huaxiao Shen & Tian Tian & Han Zhu, 2019. "A Two-Echelon Inventory System with a Minimum Order Quantity Requirement," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-22, September.
    6. Johan Marklund & Kaj Rosling, 2012. "Lower Bounds and Heuristics for Supply Chain Stock Allocation," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(1), pages 92-105, February.
    7. Johan Marklund, 2011. "Inventory control in divergent supply chains with time‐based dispatching and shipment consolidation," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(1), pages 59-71, February.
    8. Berling, Peter & Marklund, Johan, 2013. "A model for heuristic coordination of real life distribution inventory systems with lumpy demand," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 230(3), pages 515-526.
    9. Wang, Qinan & Wan, Guangyu, 2023. "Fixed-interval order-up-to policies and myopic optimal warehouse stock allocation for one-warehouse multiple-retailer systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 309(3), pages 1112-1124.
    10. Johan Marklund, 2006. "Controlling Inventories in Divergent Supply Chains with Advance-Order Information," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 54(5), pages 988-1010, October.
    11. Sven Axsäter & Johan Marklund & Edward A. Silver, 2002. "Heuristic Methods for Centralized Control of One-Warehouse, N-Retailer Inventory Systems," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 4(1), pages 75-97, October.
    12. Sven Axsäter & Johan Marklund, 2008. "Optimal Position-Based Warehouse Ordering in Divergent Two-Echelon Inventory Systems," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 56(4), pages 976-991, August.
    13. Li, Xiuhui & Wang, Qinan, 2007. "Coordination mechanisms of supply chain systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 179(1), pages 1-16, May.
    14. Mustafa Çagri Gürbüz & Kamran Moinzadeh & Yong-Pin Zhou, 2007. "Coordinated Replenishment Strategies in Inventory/Distribution Systems," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(2), pages 293-307, February.
    15. Felipe Caro & Jérémie Gallien, 2010. "Inventory Management of a Fast-Fashion Retail Network," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 257-273, April.
    16. van der Heijden, Matthieu C., 1999. "Multi-echelon inventory control in divergent systems with shipping frequencies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 331-351, July.
    17. Kunnumkal, Sumit & Topaloglu, Huseyin, 2011. "Linear programming based decomposition methods for inventory distribution systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 211(2), pages 282-297, June.
    18. Lagodimos, A.G. & Koukoumialos, S., 2008. "Service performance of two-echelon supply chains under linear rationing," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(2), pages 869-884, April.
    19. Diks, E. B. & de Kok, A. G. & Lagodimos, A. G., 1996. "Multi-echelon systems: A service measure perspective," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 241-263, December.
    20. Axsater, Sven, 2003. "Approximate optimization of a two-level distribution inventory system," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 545-553, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:211:y:2011:i:2:p:298-309. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.