Optimal inventory policy in a two-level supply chain with delay in payment and stochastic demand

摘要

This paper investigates the effect of permissible delay in payments on ordering policies in a two-level supply chain with one supplier and one retailer. We relax the assumption of deterministic denand and assume the retailer faces Poisson demand. Transportation times are none-zero constants. Both parties use one-for-one ordering policy. We derive the exact value of the expected cost for the inventory system and obtain the optimal inventory levels. A sensitivity analysis is also performed to explore the effect of key parameters such as credit pered, product price and lead-time on expected total cost. Numerical examples are presented with results discussed.