Optimal Production, Delivery and Inventory Policies for Perishable Products with Replenishment Lead Time in Two-Echelon Distribution Network

摘要

This paper analyzes a joint production and two-echelon vehicle routing problem for perishable products with replenishment lead time. A newly-designed model is formulated in an attempt to simultaneously optimize production, replenishment, inventory and routing decisions for products over a planning horizon. Moreover, we discuss different inventory policies in both two echelons and propose four propositions to model them. Additionally, the performance of four combined policies are analyzed based on different conditions, which provides some managerial insights to inventory management in practical applications.