Incorporating inventory control decisions into a strategic distribution network design model with stochastic demand [An article from: Transportation Research Part E]

This digital document is a journal article from Transportation Research Part E, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
In this paper, we propose a simultaneous approach to incorporate inventory control decisions--such as economic order quantity and safety stock decisions--into typical facility location models, which are used to solve the distribution network design problem. A simultaneous model is developed considering a stochastic demand, modeling also the risk pooling phenomenon. We present a non-linear-mixed-integer model and a heuristic solution approach, based on Lagrangian relaxation and the sub-gradient method. In a numerical application, we found that the potential cost reduction, compared to the traditional approach, increases when the holding costs and/or the variability of demand are higher.