Integrated Research On Inventory Within Distribution System Of Supply Chain

The development of information technology, esp. Internet and Electronic Business, changes the business and competition pattern completely. The corporations within the supply chain have transformed from competitors to cooperators. Efficient management of the supply chain requires an integrated approach towards various logistical functions. In particular, the fundamental areas of inventory control and transportation planning need coordinating closely.In spite of external or internal supply chain, inventory control is considered as a problem by many companies, and also as a problem that scholars and practitioner have devoted to solving. Reducing stock, decreasing inventory cost, and seeking to zero-inventory are final goals of inventory management. So inventory control is a core issue in studying decision integration of external or internal supply chain. The issue of integrated optimization of inventory and other logistics functions addresses the point of systemization and integration. It regards inventory control, production plan, distribution routing, and facility location as a whole and seeks balance among transportation, production, fixed facility, and inventory cost to satisfy demand in minimal total cost.This paper analyzes the inventory integrated-optimization issue of distribution system within supply chain systematically, and mainly studies integrated-optimization issues of inventory and production, distribution, and facility location. I give a integrated-optimization model of whole supply chain at the end of this paper by generalizing the above research. According to different mathematics model, we propose appropriate algorithm for them, and examine them through practical examples.