Three-level inventory deployment for a luxury watch company facing various perturbations

Abstract

A well-known Swiss watch brand, active in the top-end luxury market, is facing a complex inventory deployment problem where watches of different models (more than 100 different models) must be dispatched first to wholesalers to finally reach the shops where consumers come in. Along the way, different perturbations are expected at three levels (production plan, demand, and dispatching), and accurate reactions must be taken to fit to these uncertainties. Solution methods are proposed to solve realistic instances. Results show the relevance of the methods and the robustness of the solutions.

Keywords:

• inventory deployment
• perturbed dispatching
• perturbed production
• heuristics