Research On Food Inventory Control Under The Environment Of Supply Chain

Inventory is one of the most important factors in the Supply chain management.And a scientific rational inventory policy helps to reduce the cost of a supply chain,reduce the waste of resources and improve the service level of the whole supplychain. Food is an indispensable part in our life, which has an enormous inventoryturnover every day. So it is very essential to have a research on the inventory offood under environment of the supply chain, thus being meaningful to the decisionmakers.The traditional inventory theory does not apply to the food commodities whichare characteristic of "Perishable". There are two main factors that affect thereduction of the food inventory: demand and deterioration. This paper analyzes thecharacter mentioned above of the food and studies on the inventory control fromtwo aspects.Firstly, this paper studies on the inventory control of food in the productionchain. Manufacturers with production capacity, as food suppliers, are different fromdistributors in the inventory strategy facing the same case that the shortage of foodis allowed. Because the inventory of a manufacturer is related to production,demand and deterioration.Then this paper studies on the inventory control of food in a marketing chain,expanding the basic model of EOQ in the case that the shortage of food is allowed.The model contains two cases. One is the delay of the partial shortage of quantity.The other is the inventory level that affects the demand. A model of the control ofthe food inventory is given based on the full analysis on the change of the inventory,providing a theoretical basis for the food distributors to make inventory strategy indifferent situations.Finally, a production-sales food inventory policy surrounding with thedistributors under the supply chain is given. The production policy of producerschanges according to the change of the inventory policy of distributors, consideringtwo cases: the delay of the partial shortage of quantity and the inventory level thataffects the demand. Thus a model of the food inventory under the environment ofthe supply chain is built. And the given numerical example is solved by using MATLAB software, verifying the correctness of the model. This study on foodinventory control has a certain significance for participants to solve the problemof how to determine the inventory policy.