The Research On The Inventory Problem Of Two-stage Fashion Supply Chain With Stock-out Rate

Based on the the status of the apparel industry inventory problem which is becoming more and more outstanding, this article establishes the inventory model with the influence of lead time and service level (i.e., stock out rate) taken into consideration on the basis of extensive reference literature, and solves its algorithm attached with calculation analysis under the three scenarios consisted of centralized decision-making situation, supplier leading and retailer leading case respectively.Specifically, given the scarcity of references about the service level concerning the stock out satisfaction in clothing enterprises, this thesis made an investigation on its influence on consumers’ satisfaction level. In the absence of reference questionnaire, the direction of the questionnaire to be set was determined through in-depth interviews and focus groups, with a modification according to the pre-questionnaire survey results. Finally, a total of185valid questionnaires, whose research subjects are concentrated in20to30-year-old consumer groups, were collected.Through the data analysis of the questionnaire, we can see that its survey credibility meets the basic requirements. As a rather general case of stock out encountered by customers in the process of apparel consuming, it’s not so frequently the case for single customer. In the event of out of stock, the vast majority of customers will not choose to wait for the arrival, but will change the position when coming across their particular favorite styles. Consumers are willing to wait for the arrival if the retailer confronting stock out can offer them some incentives, such as price discounts and other small gifts, etc. As for the majority of respondents whose brand perception will be impacted in case of encountering out of stock, clothing enterprises have try to avoid its occurrence in order to achieve high customer satisfaction, enhance customer loyalty and obtain higher revenues.To meet the low shortage rate, apparel companies must ensure a high inventory level, which is bound to increase its inventory costs. To keep inventory costs as low as possible while ensuring income, this thesis establishes the inventory cost model for a two-stage apparel supply chain(i.e., considering only one single supplier, one single retailer) on the basis of considering both the length of lead time and transport costs, then found its optimal solution that makes inventory costs to a minimum.Synthetically, after the establishment of the model, take the four decision variables consisted of retailer’s single order quantity, delivery times available for a single production, length of lead time and shortage rate into consideration. While being able to fully take into account several key factors affecting apparel inventory, it will increase the difficulty of computing, thus resulting a local optimal solution.After establishing the basic model, solve algorithm under three scenarios, i.e., centralized decision-making situation, supplier leading case, as well as retailer leading case suitable for the model solving under different cooperation pattern, and the advice on how the company use the model to solve their realistic problems Finally, the feasibility of the algorithm was confirmed through calculation analysis of samples. Through comparison of the three algorithms, we learn that the supply chain can achieve optimal overall inventory costs under centralized decision-making situation, which is smaller compared to other inventory cost models.