Divergence control of a one-level supply chain replenishment rule

Abstract

We present a general control and improvement strategy for a one-level supply chain based on maintaining the divergence of the system close to zero at each time step. The online implementations as well as the results obtained are shown for a logistic chain model with an Order-Up-To policy using several demand patterns. The divergence can be obtained using the state-space volume calculated with all the state variables of the model. However, it is also possible to calculate the divergence by applying state-space reconstruction techniques using only one state variable. The results obtained with both approaches show that this strategy allows the reduction in the total cost.

Keywords:

• online control
• supply chain management
• order policy

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge Drs C.N. Murray and E. Gutiérrez, for revising the English language, and the financial support of the European Commission DG RTD funded MANMADE NEST Project (Contract no. 043363) and Fondazione CARIPLO.