This comprehensive Handbook provides an overview of state-of-the-art research on quantitative models for inventory management. Despite over half a century’s progress, inventory management remains a challenge, as evidenced by the recent Covid-19 pandemic. With an expanse of world-renowned inventory scholars from major international research universities, this Handbook explores key areas including mathematical modelling, the interplay of inventory decisions and other business decisions and the unique challenges posed to multiple industries.
This book deals with inventory systems in supply chains that face risks that could render products unsalable. These risks include possible cooling system failures, transportation risks, packaging errors, handling errors, or natural quality deterioration over time like spoilage of food or blood products. Classical supply chain inventory models do not regard these risks. This thesis introduces novel cost models that consider these risks. It also analyzes how real-time tracking with RFID sensors and smart containers can contribute to decision making. To solve these cost models, this work presents new solution methods based on dynamic programming. In extensive computational studies both with experimental as well as real-life data from large players in the retailer industry, the solution methods prove to lead to substantially lower costs than existing solution methods and heuristics.
A perishable item is one that has constant utility up until an expiration date (which may be known or uncertain), at which point the utility drops to zero. This includes many types of packaged foods such as milk, cheese, processed meats, and canned goods. It also includes virtually all pharmaceuticals and photographic film, as well as whole blood supplies. This book is the first devoted solely to perishable inventory systems. The book’s ten chapters first cover the preliminaries of periodic review versus continuous review and look at a one-period newsvendor perishable inventory model. The author moves to the basic multiperiod dynamic model, and then considers the extensions of random lifetime, inclusion of a set-up cost, and multiproduct models of perishables. A chapter on continuous review models looks at one-for-one policies, models with zero lead time, optimal policies with positive lead time, and an alternative approach. Additional chapters present material on approximate order policies, inventory depletion management, and deterministic models, including the basic EOQ model with perishability and the dynamic deterministic model with perishability. Finally, chapters explore decaying inventories, queues with impatient customers, and blood bank inventory control. Anyone researching perishable inventory systems will find much to work with here. Practitioners and consultants will also now have a single well-referenced source of up-to-date information to work with.
A complete and accessible introduction to the real-world applications of approximate dynamic programming With the growing levels of sophistication in modern-day operations, it is vital for practitioners to understand how to approach, model, and solve complex industrial problems. Approximate Dynamic Programming is a result of the author's decades of experience working in large industrial settings to develop practical and high-quality solutions to problems that involve making decisions in the presence of uncertainty. This groundbreaking book uniquely integrates four distinct disciplines—Markov design processes, mathematical programming, simulation, and statistics—to demonstrate how to successfully model and solve a wide range of real-life problems using the techniques of approximate dynamic programming (ADP). The reader is introduced to the three curses of dimensionality that impact complex problems and is also shown how the post-decision state variable allows for the use of classical algorithmic strategies from operations research to treat complex stochastic optimization problems. Designed as an introduction and assuming no prior training in dynamic programming of any form, Approximate Dynamic Programming contains dozens of algorithms that are intended to serve as a starting point in the design of practical solutions for real problems. The book provides detailed coverage of implementation challenges including: modeling complex sequential decision processes under uncertainty, identifying robust policies, designing and estimating value function approximations, choosing effective stepsize rules, and resolving convergence issues. With a focus on modeling and algorithms in conjunction with the language of mainstream operations research, artificial intelligence, and control theory, Approximate Dynamic Programming: Models complex, high-dimensional problems in a natural and practical way, which draws on years of industrial projects Introduces and emphasizes the power of estimating a value function around the post-decision state, allowing solution algorithms to be broken down into three fundamental steps: classical simulation, classical optimization, and classical statistics Presents a thorough discussion of recursive estimation, including fundamental theory and a number of issues that arise in the development of practical algorithms Offers a variety of methods for approximating dynamic programs that have appeared in previous literature, but that have never been presented in the coherent format of a book Motivated by examples from modern-day operations research, Approximate Dynamic Programming is an accessible introduction to dynamic modeling and is also a valuable guide for the development of high-quality solutions to problems that exist in operations research and engineering. The clear and precise presentation of the material makes this an appropriate text for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate courses, while also serving as a reference for researchers and practitioners. A companion Web site is available for readers, which includes additional exercises, solutions to exercises, and data sets to reinforce the book's main concepts.
In this book . . . Nicolas Vandeput hacks his way through the maze of quantitative supply chain optimizations. This book illustrates how the quantitative optimization of 21st century supply chains should be crafted and executed. . . . Vandeput is at the forefront of a new and better way of doing supply chains, and thanks to a richly illustrated book, where every single situation gets its own illustrating code snippet, so could you. --Joannes Vermorel, CEO, Lokad Inventory Optimization argues that mathematical inventory models can only take us so far with supply chain management. In order to optimize inventory policies, we have to use probabilistic simulations. The book explains how to implement these models and simulations step-by-step, starting from simple deterministic ones to complex multi-echelon optimization. The first two parts of the book discuss classical mathematical models, their limitations and assumptions, and a quick but effective introduction to Python is provided. Part 3 contains more advanced models that will allow you to optimize your profits, estimate your lost sales and use advanced demand distributions. It also provides an explanation of how you can optimize a multi-echelon supply chain based on a simple—yet powerful—framework. Part 4 discusses inventory optimization thanks to simulations under custom discrete demand probability functions. Inventory managers, demand planners and academics interested in gaining cost-effective solutions will benefit from the "do-it-yourself" examples and Python programs included in each chapter. Events around the book Link to a De Gruyter Online Event in which the author Nicolas Vandeput together with Stefan de Kok, supply chain innovator and CEO of Wahupa; Koen Cobbaert, Director in the S&O Industry practice of PwC Belgium; Bram Desmet, professor of operations & supply chain at the Vlerick Business School in Ghent; and Karl-Eric Devaux, Planning Consultant, Hatmill, discuss about models for inventory optimization. The event will be moderated by Eric Wilson, Director of Thought Leadership for Institute of Business Forecasting (IBF): https://youtu.be/565fDQMJEEg
