In supply chain networks, the flow of material occurs between various business entities such as suppliers, manufactures, distributors and retailers, which can be considered as the various echelons (levels) in a multi-echelon supply chain network. Spare parts supply chain management deals with optimizing stocking, purchasing, repairing and disposing activities of purchased parts and their compon...

We consider a multi-item two-echelon inventory system in which the central warehouse operates under a (Q,R) policy, and each local warehouse implements (S − 1, S) policy. The objective is to find the policy parameters minimizing expected system-wide inventory holding and fixed ordering costs subject to an aggregate mean response time constraint at each facility. We propose a Lagrangian heuristi...

Product perishability is a major concern of certain industrial sectors, especially the agro-food industry. This paper investigates the effect of product perishability and retailers’ stockout policy on system total cost, net profit, service level, and average inventory level in a two-echelon inventory–distribution system, and develops an approximate inventory model to these system performance me...

In this paper we consider a two-echelon supply chain system consisting of a supplier and a retailer. The supplier has an inventory system and a service unit to process the orders received from the retailer. Demands arrive to the retailer according to a Poisson process. Both supplier and retailer apply one-for-one ordering policy. The supplier’s lead time and the service time of his service unit...

In this paper, a supplier-retailer transportation system is investigated as a two-echelon environment. There is a single location in each echelon; the unique supplier at the first echelon has to replenish the retailer's warehouse at the second echelon. By the way, the shortage situation should be avoided. For this situation, a model is provided based on the traditional EOQ model. The inventory ...

We consider a periodic-review, serial inventory system, in which each stage replenishes inventory according to an echelon-stock (r, nQ, T ) policy – a standard echelon-stock (r, nQ) policy executed every T periods. Demands are independent, identically distributed in different periods and occur at the most downstream stage. Two types of fixed costs are considered: setup cost and replenishment co...

This paper focuses on the development of simulation-based environment for multi-echelon cyclic planning and optimisation in the product maturity phase. It is based on integration of analytical and simulation techniques. Analytical techniques are used to obtain initial planning decisions under conditions of stochastic demand and lead time, whereas simulation techniques extend these conditions to...

This paper deals with divergent logistic networks where the inventory at each node is controlled using a periodic review strategy with order-up-to level. An approximate method is presented to analyse the network performance (service levels, mean physical stock). The method is tested on a range of Z-echelon and 3-echelon networks by comparison to results from Monte Carlo simulation. We conclude ...

We study the optimal integrated production/inventory policy in a two-echelon supply chain with one manufacturer and one retailer. The manufacturer produces items in her production facility and keeps the Þnished goods in inventory. The manufacturer’s production facility deteriorates with usage and is subject to failure. Under the assumption that the manufacturer has on-line access to the retaile...