Logistics And Inventory / Distribution Integration To Optimize The Research And Application

Recently there are more researches on Inventory Routing Problem (IRP) in developed countries, since they are paying much attention to Supply Chain Management. The main application of IRP includes Vendor Managed Inventory Replenishment and the distribution among different multiple shops. Although there is much research on inventory and distribution respectively, less is concerned on their relationship and interdependence. Therefore this paper focuses on the integration of inventory and distribution, namely IRP, from the respective point of the retailer and producer.However there is less research on IRP in our country, in fact only some application on a small scale. With the development of logistics in our country, the research on IRP is really a matter of great significance.This paper firstly introduces the concept, origin and effect of IRP, then proposes the rationalization measure of IRP after analyzing it in detail.From the point of view of retailer, this paper addresses a multi-period integrated model that plans deliveries to customers based upon inventories (at warehouse and customer locations) and vehicle routes. The model determines replenishment quantities and intervals at the warehouse, and distribution lots and delivery routes at customer locations. The author investigates coordination of customer and warehouse replenishment decisions and illustrates their interdependence. Computational experience on randomly generated problems is reported. The author shows that ordering policy at the warehouse is a function of how goods are distributed to lower echelons and that coordination leads to cost reduction.Efficient management of a distribution system requires an integrated approach towards various logistical functions. In particular, the fundamental areas of inventory control and transportation planning need to be closely coordinated. From the point of view of producer, the model in this paper deals with an inbound material-collection problem. An integrated inventory-transportation system is developed with a modified periodic-review inventory policy and a traveling-salesman component. This is a multi-item joint replenishment problem, in stochastic setting, with simultaneous decisions made on inventory and transportation policies. The author proposes a heuristic decomposition method tosolve the problem, minimizing the long-run total average costs (major-and minor-ordering, holding, backlogging, stopover and travel). The decomposition algorithm works by using separate calculations for inventory and routing decisions, and then coordinating them appropriately. A lower bound is constructed and computational experience is reported.Yang Ping (Transportation Planning and Management) Directed by Hou Ronahua. Zonq Beihua...