A supplier selection and order allocation problem with stochastic demands

Abstract

We consider a system comprising a retailer and a set of candidate suppliers that operates within a finite planning horizon of multiple periods. The retailer replenishes its inventory from the suppliers and satisfies stochastic customer demands. At the beginning of each period, the retailer makes decisions on the replenishment quantity, supplier selection and order allocation among the selected suppliers. An optimisation problem is formulated to minimise the total expected system cost, which includes an outer level stochastic dynamic program for the optimal replenishment quantity and an inner level integer program for supplier selection and order allocation with a given replenishment quantity. For the inner level subproblem, we develop a polynomial algorithm to obtain optimal decisions. For the outer level subproblem, we propose an efficient heuristic for the system with integer-valued inventory, based on the structural properties of the system with real-valued inventory. We investigate the efficiency of the proposed solution approach, as well as the impact of parameters on the optimal replenishment decision with numerical experiments.