An Optimal Joint Multi-Item Replenishment Policy for a Two-Level Supply Chain: Centralized versus Decentralized Decision

摘要

Any industry has its own supply chain where it is not necessary to have all stages in the supply chain and the optimal ordering policies of those individual stages may be different. This paper presents an extension of two–level supply chain inventory model discussed in related works. The main consideration of this paper is to determine the optimal ordering policy according to inventory and transportation costs in a two stage supply chain consisting of warehouse and retailer in case of multiple–items. The evaluation is based on centralized and decentralized decisions for a retailer and a single warehouse. A model is developed and finally a case study is presented to illustrate the proposed approach. The numerical results show that the centralized decision results in a significant saving compared to the decentralized one. It is, therefore, evident that the proposed model for the centralized policy ensures more profitability of the whole system.