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Article: Analysis of the (s, S) policy for perishables with a random shelf life.
- Article from:
- IIE Transactions
- Article date:
- August 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Institute of Industrial Engineers, Inc. (IIE). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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1. Introduction and literature review
Most of the existing models in the inventory literature assume that items have an infinite shelf life and thus can be stored indefinitely. This assumption is not realistic for perishable goods that can deteriorate and become unusable after some finite time. Fresh food stuff, blood products, meat, chemicals, composite materials and pharmaceuticals are all examples of perishable products.
Perishability is generally modeled in one of three ways.
1. Continuous deterioration, where the items in stock decay with a rate proportional to the amount and/or age of the items. Volatile chemicals and radioactive materials ...