Operations Managers of manufacturing systems, distribution systems, and supply chains address lot sizing and scheduling problems as part of their duties. These problems are concerned with decisions related to the size of orders and their schedule. In general, products share or compete for common resources and thus require coordination of their replenishment decisions whether replenishment involves manufacturing operations or not. This research is concerned with joint replenishment problems (JRPs) which are part of multi-item lot sizing and scheduling problems in manufacturing and distribution systems in single echelon/stage systems. The principal purpose of this research is to develop three new periodic review policies for stochastic joint replenishment problem. It also highlights the lack of research on joint replenishment problems with different demand classes (DSJRP). Therefore, periodic review policy is developed for this problem where the inventory system faces different demand classes that are deterministic demand and stochastic demand. Heuristic Algorithms have been developed to obtain (near) optimal parameters for the three policies as well as a heuristic algorithm has been developed for DSJRP. Numerical tests against literature benchmarks have been presented.

In an e-retailing setting, the efficient utilization of inventory, storage space, and labor is paramount to achieving high levels of customer service and company profits. To optimize the storage space and labor, a retailer will split the warehouse into two storage regions with different densities. One region is for picking customer orders and the other to hold reserve stock. As a consequence, the inventory system for the warehouse is a multi-item two-stage, serial system. We investigate the problem when demand is stochastic and the objective is to minimize the total expected average cost under some space constraints. We generate an approximate formulation and solution procedure for a periodic review, nested ordering policy, and provide managerial insights on the trade-offs. In addition, we extend the formulation to account for shipping delays and advanced order information. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

In this study, inventory&ndash / distribution system of a company operating in Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry is analyzed. The system is a multi&ndash / item, two-echelon, divergent inventory&ndash / distribution system with transportation constraints. The warehouses in the system are nonidentical and all of the warehouses are allowed to hold stock. The goal is to achive target customer service levels. Throughout the system, inventory is controlled by echelon stock periodic review (R, S) order-up-to level policy. The problem is the determination of inventory control parameters in the system and effective replenishment of the inventories of many items at regional warehouses under transportation constraints. An approach consisting of three modules operating in a hierarchy is developed to manage the system. The approach calculates the inventory control parameters of the items (order-up-to levels at the regional warehouses and stock allocation fractions) / determines the replenishment periods of the items with the objective of balancing the vehicle requirements among periods and performs the daily replenishment of inventories minimizing the maximum deviation from the inventory policy under transportation constraints. A heuristic approach is adapted from the literature for the inventory control parameter determination part of the approach / an IP model is formulated for the replenishment period scheduling part and a MIP model is constructed for the replenishment process. The proposed approach is simulated with retrospective data of the company and compared with the existing system in the company, in terms of the performance measures defined. Satisfactory results are obtained with the proposed system.

We study an inventory system with two potential supply modes: regular order placement opportunities happen at a fixed frequency, which defines regular review cycles, while emergency orders can be placed on every period within a regular review cycle. Regular and emergency orders incur a per-unit cost while the latest incurs an additional setup cost For a regular order lead-time equal to two periods, we show that the optimal policy with respect to the expected total discounted cost, is of (s; S) type for emergency orders while the size of a regular order depends on the inventory position following a potential emergency order. Although we could not establish the optimality for regular order lead-times exceeding two periods, substantial experimental evidence supports the conjecture that the optimal policy retains the same structure. Since the optimal policy algorithm requires significant computational effort, we develop and evaluate two heuristic policies whose operational parameters can be computed with relatively small computational effort and compare them against the optimal policy in terms of implementation difficulty, speed and accuracy for an experimental design of 3888 cases. The evaluation of the proposed optimal policy and the two heuristics requires a simulation suite flexible enough to capture the specific problem dynamics. This motivates the development of the Inventory Simulator Workbench (ISW). This inventory system simulator, written in Java, provides the user with a graphical interface and the ability to model a large range of supply chain structures and inventory ordering and distribution policies.

Submitted by ÁLVARO DE MARTINO LOURENÇÃO null (alvarodml@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-09-01T02:29:53Z No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertação final.pdf: 1977900 bytes, checksum: f021d291c786b9596621fda8c29bfa24 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Paula Grisoto (grisotoana@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2016-09-01T19:40:32Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 lourencao_am_me_bauru.pdf: 1977900 bytes, checksum: f021d291c786b9596621fda8c29bfa24 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-01T19:40:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 lourencao_am_me_bauru.pdf: 1977900 bytes, checksum: f021d291c786b9596621fda8c29bfa24 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-07-04 / A gestão de estoque pode ser considerada como um dos principais componentes do planejamento e controle da produção. Na literatura acadêmica, inúmeros modelos matemáticos são apresentados para a gestão de estoque, os quais se referem a diferentes aspectos relacionados a essa gestão. O desenvolvimento de modelos de estoque eficientes e a adoção de métodos de otimização adequados para resolução desses modelos são necessários para o suporte à tomada de decisão. Neste trabalho, propõe-se um novo modelo de estoque que considera múltiplos produtos e múltiplas restrições de recursos, explorando o conceito de ponto de reposição e revisão periódica. Este problema é formulado como um problema de otimização não linear inteiro misto. Explora-se para a resolução deste modelo, uma abordagem baseada no método de Branch and Bound com o método de pontos interiores para a resolução dos problemas da árvore de busca. Testes computacionais são realizados com o modelo proposto e o método de resolução adotado. Os resultados obtidos evidenciam os seus potenciais para trabalhar com sistemas de estoque multiprodutos com múltiplas restrições. / Inventory management can be considered as one of the main components of planning and production control. In the academic literature, numerous mathematical models are presented for the inventory management, which refer to different aspects related to such a management. The development of efficient inventory models and the adoption of appropriate optimization methods for solving these models are needed to support decision-making. In this work, we propose a new inventory model that considers multiple products and multiple resource constraints, exploring the concept of replacement point and periodic review. This problem is formulated as a mixed integer non-linear optimization problem. For solving this model, an approach based on Branch and Bound method with interior point method for solving the search tree problems is explored. Computational tests are performed with the proposed model and the resolution method adopted. The obtained results show their potential to work with multiproduct inventory systems with multiple constraints.

Lowering the degree of component commonality may yield a higher type-II service level for a periodic review assemble-to-order system that aims to maximize reward. This is achieved via separating inventories of all the shared components for different products. We investigate the optimal bill-of-materials structure for two-product assemble-to-order systems with arbitrary number of components. The inventory of a shared component can be separated or common between different products. We show that an optimal bill-of-materials can be characterized between the following two extremal configurations: either two products share all common components, or they do not share any common component. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

In this thesis, two-echelon systems with exogenous and endogenous lead times are studied for the orders placed by the retailer(s) from the supplier. The retailer(s) employ periodic-review base-stock policy, namely (R,S) policy. For the case the demand during review period is i.i.d. and the probability distribution is Normal for each review period, a new method is proposed for exogenous lead time case under stationary policy. The results of the proposed method is then compared with the results of the existing methods in the literature and it is concluded that the proposed method provides service levels sufficiently close to target levels whereas the existing methods do not necessarily provide target levels. We use the simulation to study the endogenous replenishment lead time case. The proposed method is modified when the retailer employs stationary policy and it is seen that the proposed method gives no-stockout probabilities close to target levels. Moreover, the impacts of using adaptive policy on the performance of the retailer are studied for endogenous replenishment lead time case. It is concluded that updating of the order-up-to-level deteriorates the performance of the retailer. Finally, it is questioned whether it is beneficial for a retailer to use adaptive policy in a supply chain with two retailers. Simulation results show that the deterioration in the performance of the retailer handling stationary policy is larger compared to the other retailer handling adaptive policy and the deteriorations get larger in the case of an increase in update frequency or in utilization of the supplier.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the power and capacity of the UN Human Rights Council to promote and protect human rights through the recommendations by the Special Procedures and the Universal Periodic Review. The aim is then to analyse the recommendations and their effect by using the Concept of power by Robert Dahl (2007). The essay aims to answer the question if the Human Rights Council has power over the countries Russia and Afghanistan together with the questions about the effect of the recommendations. The method chosen for this thesis is qualitative one as it is a comparative case-study. As a theory is used as a lens to analyse the findings it is an abductive study. The conclusion of this study is that the recommendations have not succeeded to promote or protect human rights in Afghanistan or Russia and thus the Human rights Council has no power.

The implicit assumption in conventional inventory models is that the stored products maintain the same utility forever, i.e., they can be stored for an infinite period of time without losing their value or characteristics. However, generally speaking, almost all products experience some sort of deterioration over time. Some products have very small deterioration rates, and henceforth the effect of such deterioration can be neglected. Some products may be subject to significant rates of deterioration. Fruits, vegetables, drugs, alcohol and radioactive materials are examples that can experience significant deterioration during storage. Therefore the effect of deterioration must be explicitly taken into account in developing inventory models for such products. In most existing deteriorating inventory models, time is treated as a continuous variable, which is not exactly the case in practice. In real-life problems time factor is always measured on a discrete scale only, i.e. in terms of complete units of days, weeks, etc. In this research, we present several discrete-in-time inventory models and identify optimal ordering policies for a single deteriorating product by minimizing the expected overall costs over the planning horizon. The various conditions have been considered, e.g. periodic review, time-varying deterioration rate, waiting-time-dependent partial backlogging, time-dependent demand, stochastic demand etc. The objective of our research is two-fold: (a) To obtain optimal order quantity and useful insights for the inventory control of a single deteriorating product over a discrete time horizon with deterministic demand, variable deterioration rates and waiting-time-dependent partial backlogging ratios; (b) To identify optimal ordering policy for a single deteriorating product over a finite horizon with stochastic demand and partial backlogging. The explicit ordering policy will be developed for some special cases. Through computational experiments and sensitivity analysis, a thorough and insightful understanding of deteriorating inventory management will be achieved.

Submitted by Livia Mello (liviacmello@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-10-11T20:12:25Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DissTSK.pdf: 3524235 bytes, checksum: 7f004fb5c47d3a888f9b19f884f38946 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marina Freitas (marinapf@ufscar.br) on 2016-10-21T12:58:59Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissTSK.pdf: 3524235 bytes, checksum: 7f004fb5c47d3a888f9b19f884f38946 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marina Freitas (marinapf@ufscar.br) on 2016-10-21T12:59:07Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissTSK.pdf: 3524235 bytes, checksum: 7f004fb5c47d3a888f9b19f884f38946 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-21T12:59:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissTSK.pdf: 3524235 bytes, checksum: 7f004fb5c47d3a888f9b19f884f38946 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-05-19 / Não recebi financiamento / This dissertation studies the application of a periodic review inventory model based on the multiperiod newsboy problem, as an effective alternative to reach a well balanced inventory planning policy of subcontractors primary parts area of the aerospace industry. In Brazil, the aerospace industry is responsible for a large amount of the country exports and this industry competes with other globally aerospace supply chains in a scenario increasingly turbulent and demanding for fast deliveries, with high quality levels and low cost. The purpose of this work is to study and propose this alternative for optimizing the inventory planning by means of a quantitative approach, applied in a primary parts sector of the aerospace industry, it will focus in a specific group of items with high annual demand value. The main objective of this approach is to balance the high inventory costs with a high service level demanded in this industry, and efficiently respond the stakeholders expectations, with superior performance of the usual models adopted by this industry, and give a better support to the decision makers in a tactical-operational level. The result obtained show the potential of the method to improve the performance of these inventory management and planning systems. / Este trabalho estuda a aplicação de um modelo analítico de revisão periódica de estoques, baseado no problema do jornaleiro multiperíodo (Multiperiod Newsboy Problem), como uma alternativa efetiva para determinação da política de planejamento de estoques do setor de peças primárias subcontratadas da indústria aeroespacial. No Brasil, a indústria aeroespacial é responsável por grande parte das exportações do país e compete globalmente com outras cadeias aeroespaciais num cenário cada vez mais turbulento e exigente por entregas rápidas, com altos níveis de qualidade e baixos custos. O objetivo deste trabalho é estudar e propor essa alternativa para otimizar o planejamento de estoques por meio de uma abordagem quantitativa, aplicada no setor de peças primárias da indústria aeroespacial, para um grupo de peças com características especificas, principalmente as de alto valor para demanda anual. O intuito desta abordagem é equilibrar os altos custos de estoque com os altos níveis de serviço exigidos por esta indústria, e responder de forma eficiente às expectativas dos stakeholders, com desempenho superior aos modelos atualmente utilizados no setor e auxiliar de forma mais precisa e sistematizada a tomada de decisão no nível tático-operacional. Os resultados obtidos mostram o potencial do método para melhorar o desempenho desses sistemas de gestão e planejamento de estoques.