• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2015

In this paper, we consider multi-item inventory management. When managing a multi-item inventory, we coordinate replenishment orders of items supplied by the same supplier. The associated problem is called the joint replenishment problem (JRP). One often-used approach to the JRP is to apply a can-order policy. Under a can-order policy, some items are re-ordered when their inventory level drops to or below their re-order level, and any other item with an inventory level at or below its can-order level can be included in this order. In the present paper, we propose a method for finding the optimal parameter of a can-order policy, the can-order level, for each item in a lost-sales model. The main objectives in our model are minimizing the number of ordering, inventory, and shortage (i.e., lost-sales) respectively, compared with the conventional JRP, in which the objective is to minimize total cost. In order to solve this multi-objective optimization problem, we apply a genetic algorithm. In a numerical experiment using actual shipment data, we simulate the proposed model and compare the results with those of other methods.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.115-123
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• 2006

The main focus of this study is to investigate the performance of a clark-scarf type multi-echelon serial supply chain operating with a base-stock policy and to optimize the inventory levels in the supply chains so as to minimize the systemwide total inventory cost, comprising holding and backorder costs as all the nodes in the supply chain. The source of supply of raw materials to the most upstream node, namely supplier, is assumed to have an infinite raw material availability. Retailer faces random customer demand, which is assumed to be stationary and normally distributed. If the demand exceeds on-hand inventory, the excess demand is backlogged. Using the echelon stock and demand quantile concepts and an efficient simulation technique, we derive near optimal inventory policy. Additionally we discuss the derived results through the extensive experiments for different supply chain settings.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.111-127
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• 2004

We consider a supply chain model with a make-to-order production facility and a single supplier. The model we treat here is a special case of a two-echelon inventory model. Unlike classical two-echelon systems, the demand process at the supplier is affected by production process at the production facility as well as customer order arrival process. In this paper, we address that how the demand variability impacts on the optimal replenishment policy. To this end, we incorporate Erlang and phase-type demand distributions into the model. Formulating the model as a Markov decision problem, we investigate the structure of the optimal replenishment policy. We also implement a sensitivity analysis on the optimal policy and establish its monotonicity with respect to system cost parameters.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.179-186
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• 2006

There was a lot of research to integration of the transshipment and inventory problem in supply chain. Such a integration of inventory and transshipment problem called IRP (Inventory Routing Problem). We consider a distribution problem in which a set of products has to be shipped from a supplier to several retailers in a given planning horizon. Transshipment from the supplier to the retailer is performed by vehicles of limited capacity. Each retailer determines replenishment leadtime and order quantity with buffer management. A supplier determines optimal vehicle routing in supply chain. We suggest a heuristic algorithm which be used TOC buffer management in a replenishment problem and a tabu search algorithm in VRP (Vehicle Routing Problem).

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.15-23
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• 1992

This paper dvelops an inventory model with partial backorders considering both inflation rate and discount rate under the situation of deterministic demand and lead time and then make an economic analysis. Especially, the inventory model with partial backorders provided here is the inventory model minimizing annual total cash outflows, which is extended by the addition of inflation rate and discount rate into "Inventory Model with Partial Bakorders" of Park [6]. An iterative solution procedure is developed to find an optimal inventory policy. To provide guidelines for economic analysis of inventory model with partial backorders, sensitivity analysis for selected values of parameters is performed.performed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.36-43
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• 2013

Many retailer store managers are experiencing the situation where some customers balk at purchasing products if the stock is low. In this paper, we extend the single period newsvendor model in an environment of customer balking behavior occurring at double threshold inventory levels assuming the chance of sales during balking is a discrete function of inventory level. Our analysis is based on the assumption that only the mean and the variance of demand are known, without assuming any specific distributional form. We derive the explicit general expression of optimal order quantity with unknown distribution of demand with double threshold inventory levels of customer balking. Then, we illustrate the concepts developed here through simple numerical examples and conclude the future research topics under balking situation.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.83-95
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• 2010

This paper considers a firm that operates make-to-stock and make-to-order facilities in successive stages. The make-to-stock facility produces components which are consumed by the external market demand as well as the internal make-to-order operation. The make-to-order facility processes customer orders with the option of acceptance or rejection. In this paper, we address the problem of coordinating how to allocate the capacity of the make-to-stock facility to internal and external demands and how to control incoming customer orders at the make-to-order facility so as to maximize the firm's profit subject to the system costs. To deal with this issue, we formulate the problem as a Markov decision process and characterize the structure of the optimal inventory allocation and customer order control. In a numerical experiment, we compare the performance of the optimal policy to the heuristic with static inventory allocation and admission control under different operating conditions of the system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.267-284
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• 2008

Consider a supply chain where products are produced at a manufacturing system, shipped to a distribution center, and then supplied to customers. The distribution center controls inventory based on a base-stock policy, and whenever a unit of product is demanded by a customer, an order is released to the production system. Unsatisfied demand is backordered, and the inventory and backordered units are a function of the base-stock level. The manufacturing system is modeled as an M/M/s/c queueing system, and orders exceeding the limited buffer capacity are blocked and lost. The throughput of the manufacturing system and the steady state distribution of the outstanding orders are functions of number of servers and buffers of the manufacturing system. There is a profit obtained from throughput and costs due to servers and buffers of the manufacturing system, and also costs due to inventory positions of the distribution center, and we want to maximize the total production profit minus the total cost of the supply chain by simultaneously determining the optimal number of servers and buffers of the manufacturing system and the optimal base-stock level of the distribution center. We develope two algorithms, one analytical but without guarantee of the optimal solution and one optimal but without complete analytical proofs. The problem integrates strategic problem of the manufacturing system with tactical problem of the distribution center in a supply chain.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.47-52
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• 1986

Slow-moving items whose cost is so high and/or whose demand is so low the optimal policy is to place a reorder immediately whenever a demand occurs. This is a continuous review (S-1,S) inventory policy which means that whenever a demand for an arbitrary number of units is accepted, a reorder is placed immediately for that number of units. This paper show optimal inventory level ($S^*$) when arrivals tend to get discouraged and recommend practical difficulties of deciding stockholding policy of slow-moving items. Also, a simple numerical example is provided.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society for Simulation Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.101-105
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• 2002

In a traditional hierarchical inventory system, direct orders are the only information for inventory management that is exchanged between the firms involved. But due to the rapid development of modern information technology, it becomes possible for the firms to share more information in real time, e.g. demand and inventory status data. And so the term Supply Chain has emerged because it is seen as an important source of competitive advantage. Now it is possible to challenge traditional approaches to inventory management. In the past, one of the de-facto assumptions for inventory management was that the demand pattern follows a specific distribution function. However, it is undesirable to apply this assumption in real situations because the demand information in the supply chain tends to be distorted due to the bullwhip effect in a supply chain. To overcome this weakness, we propose a new solution method using NN (Neural Network). Our method proceeds in three steps. First, we find the patterns of optimal reorder points by analyzing past data. Second. train the NN using these pattern data and finally decide the reorder point. Using simulation experiment, we show that the proposed solution method gives better result than that of traditional research.