Inventory Control Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Technology advances have made it conceivable to build and deploy dense wireless networks of heterogeneous nodes collecting and disseminating wide ranges of environmental data. Applications of such sensor and monitoring networks include... more

Technology advances have made it conceivable to build and deploy dense wireless networks of heterogeneous nodes collecting and disseminating wide ranges of environmental data. Applications of such sensor and monitoring networks include smart homes equipped with security, identification, and personalization systems; intelligent assembly systems; warehouse inventory control; interactive learning toys; and disaster mitigation. The opportunities emerging from this technology give rise to new definitions of distributed computing and the user interface. Crucial to the success of these ubiquitous networks is the availability of small, lightweight, low-cost network elements, which the authors call PicoNodes. The authors present a configurable architecture that enables these opportunities to be efficiently realized in silicon. They believe that this energy-conscious system design and implementation methodology will lead to radio nodes that are two orders of magnitude more efficient than existing solutions

Forecasting and inventory control for intermittent demand items has been a major problem in the manufacturing and supply environment. Croston (Operational Research Quarterly 23 (1972) 289), proposed a method according to which... more

Forecasting and inventory control for intermittent demand items has been a major problem in the manufacturing and supply environment. Croston (Operational Research Quarterly 23 (1972) 289), proposed a method according to which intermittent demand estimates can be built from constituent events. Croston's method has been reported to be a robust method but has shown more modest benefits in forecasting accuracy than expected. In this research, one of the causes of this unexpected performance has been identified, as a first step towards improving Croston's method. Certain limitations are identified in Croston's approach and a correction in his derivation of the expected estimate of demand per time period is presented. In addition, a modification to his method that gives approximately unbiased demand per period estimates is introduced. All the conclusions are confirmed by means of an extended simulation experiment where Croston's and Revised Croston's methods are compared. The forecasting accuracy comparison corresponds to a situation of an inventory control system employing a re-order interval or product group review.

Radio frequency identification systems have many applications in manufacturing, supply chain management, inventory control, and telemedicine. In an RFID system, products and objects are given RFID tags to identify themselves. However,... more

Radio frequency identification systems have many applications in manufacturing, supply chain management, inventory control, and telemedicine. In an RFID system, products and objects are given RFID tags to identify themselves. However, security and privacy issues pose significant challenges on these systems. In this article we first briefly introduce RFID systems. Then two RFID applications in telemedicine are proposed: studying supply and demand of doctors, nurses, and patients in hospitals and healthcare, and developing mobile telemedicine services. The security and privacy issues of RFID, and their solutions are discussed as well.

Empirical research suggests that quantitatively derived forecasts are very frequently judgementally adjusted. Nevertheless, little work has been conducted to evaluate the performance of these judgemental adjustments in a practical... more

Empirical research suggests that quantitatively derived forecasts are very frequently judgementally adjusted. Nevertheless, little work has been conducted to evaluate the performance of these judgemental adjustments in a practical demand/sales context. In addition, the relevant analysis does not distinguish between slow and fast moving items. Currently, there are neither conceptual developments nor empirical evidence on the issue of integrating judgements and statistical forecasts for slow/intermittent demand items. Moreover, no results have ever been reported on the stock control implications of these human judgements. Our work analyses monthly intermittent demand forecasts for the UK branch of a major international pharmaceutical company. The company relies upon a commercially available statistical forecasting system to produce forecasts that are subsequently judgementally adjusted based on marketing intelligence gathered by the company forecasters. The benefits of the intervention are evaluated by comparing the actual sales to system and final forecasts using both forecast accuracy and inventory control (accuracy implication) metrics. Our study allows insights to be gained on potential improvements to intermittent demand forecasting processes and, subsequently, the design effectiveness of forecasting support systems.

In any situation of fixed capacity and a perishable service or product, firms want to avoid spoilage of the service or product and receive the most revenue possible in the face of uncertain demand. Stimulation of demand from... more

In any situation of fixed capacity and a perishable service or product, firms want to avoid spoilage of the service or product and receive the most revenue possible in the face of uncertain demand. Stimulation of demand from price-sensitive customers, however, through ...