多市场环境下新鲜产品库存管理策略研究

新鲜产品在分销途中高度易变质的特性给销售商的供需匹配带来了更大的挑战. 本文考虑一个销售商采购一批产品, 并依次运送至多个市场销售的情形. 每个市场的需求和分销途中的数量损毁都是随机的. 销售商每抵达一个市场, 都要综合权衡现有库存及未来市场需求和库存损毁情况, 作出卸货量决策. 基于一个多周期的动态规划模型, 我们采用随机建模与优化的方法, 研究了销售商的最优卸货量和最优初始采购量决策及其结构性质. 数值实验进一步对库存合并效果进行了分析： 当产品在途中的变质性高度负相关, 产品更容易变质, 产品变质风险更大, 以及市场需求不确定性更低时, 制定动态卸货量决策是更为有利可图的. 研究结果为多个市场新鲜产品的管理和销售工作带来了有益的启示.

Dynamic inventory management of fresh products with multiple consecutive markets

The highly perishable nature of fresh products during distribution creates additional challenges for firms engaged in the supply chain in the process of matching supply with demand. This paper considers a retailer who purchases a batch of fresh products, transports and sells them to multiple consecutive markets. The demand from each market and the quantity loss from perishability during transportation are both assumed to be stochastic. The retailer needs to determine the quantity to be unloaded when he arrives at each market, with the remaining inventory being transported to the next market. The unloading quantity depends on the trade-off among factors including the current inventory level, forecast of demands from the remaining markets, and the potential perishability of products. Based on a multi-period dynamic programming model and using a stochastic modeling approach, we provide an in-depth investigation towards the optimal unloading quantity decisions for the retailer and characterize the structure of the optimal policy. Moreover, the optimal initial inventory decision is studied. By conducting some numerical experiments, we analyze the potential inventory pooling effect from making dynamic decisions. Our results show that making unloading decisions in a dynamic way is more profitable when the inventory surviving factors are negatively correlated, when the products are more perishable, when the perishability risk is high, and when the demand is less uncertain. Our research results provide some interesting and important managerial insights for the management of fresh products across multiple consecutive markets.