Title: A vendor-buyer supply chain model with stochastic lead times and screening errors

Authors: Mehmood Khan; Matloub Hussain; Hussein Saber

Addresses: College of Business Administration (COBA), Abu Dhabi University, P.O. Box 59911, Abu Dhabi, UAE ' College of Business Administration (COBA), Abu Dhabi University, P.O. Box 59911, Abu Dhabi, UAE ' College of Business Administration (COBA), Abu Dhabi University, P.O. Box 59911, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Abstract: Inventory management and coordination among different echelons are some of the primary factors for the success of any supply chain. The classical economic order quantity (EOQ) model endeavours to achieve optimisation in the field of inventory management across supply chains. Most of the literature on supply chains ignores the role of quality, human factors and variability in lead-time-demand, while trying to improve its performance. The objective of this paper is to study the combined effect of defective items, inspection errors and stochastic lead time demand on the optimal cost of a two level (vendor-buyer) supply chain. A simple solution procedure along with a numerical example is presented to determine the optimal solution to this model. A sensitivity analysis is carried out to illustrate the significance of different parameters. Finally, a discussion on management insights is presented to complement the model and results.

Keywords: supply chain management; SCM; EOQ; economic order quantity; EPQ; economic production quantity; variable lead times; defective items; inspection errors; stochastic lead times; screening errors; inventory management; supply chain coordination.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2017.082610

International Journal of Operational Research, 2017 Vol.28 No.4, pp.488 - 505

Received: 10 Dec 2013
Accepted: 26 Jul 2014
Published online: 03 Mar 2017 *

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