Research On Inventory Sharing Model In Three-Echelon Supply Chain Considering Lateral Transshipments And Service Level Constraints

In order to meet the requirements of the customer service levels,the company tend to hold a certain amount of inventory.A classical index of service level is the fill rate,which means the ratio of the demand satisfied by inventory on hand.In the actual operation,the company often improve service level by inventory sharing,and the lateral transshipments is one way of inventory sharing.The transshipments policy is widely applied to automobile,clothing and medical,and so on all walks of life.When lead time is comparatively long and demand is difficult to predict,transshipments policy proves to be an effective coordination mechanisms to match demand and supply,and it is also a kind of special method of risk sharing.In this paper,the supply chain considered includes one supplier,one central warehouse and multiple retailers as the research object.We discuss the inventory sharing model in three-echelon supply chain considering lateral transshipments and service level constraints,using the ideas of the queuing theory to analyze model,which has important theoretical and practical significance.The main contents are as follows:(1)Adopting the idea of queuing theory in inventory systemm effectively:In this paper,the inventory system is regarded as a special queuing system.In the queuing system,the services provided by the system is storage,and the customers are the products.Using the queuing theory,the paper solves the ratios of customer demand that be satisfied by inventory on hand,lateral transshipments,direct delivering and urgent orders.(2)To build the inventory sharing model of three-echelon supply chain considering lateral transshipments and service level constraints:The model works out the central warehouse and the retailer's inventory control policy and the inventory movement policy between them.And the paper also designs a genetic algorithm to search the near-optimum solution.(3)Using the Genetic Algorithm to solve the proposed model and analyze the numerical example.Taking the supply chain system of 4S store's product A as an example,the paper uses the Genetic Algorithm solving the proposed model.Through the numerical analysis,the validity of the model is verified,and the matlab software programming is used to obtain the solution.Then,through sensitivity analysis of the service level,we get a series of in-depth insights related with our inventory sharing model of three-echelon supply chain considering lateral transshipments and service level constraints.Finally,the paper compares the solutions of(R,Q,H)policy and one-for-one policy to validate the advantage of the(R,Q,H)policy.The inventory sharing model in three-echelon supply chain considering lateral transshipments and service level constraints studied by this paper is a good complement to existing research,enriching the theory of supply chain inventory management.In this paper,the model is more close to the actual situation,and to some extent,it helps to reduce the system cost,improving the level of customer service.By calculating and analyzing an example,we provide some theoretical guidance and reference value for the practical operation of enterprises.