Designing a resilient supply chain through a robust adaptive model predictive control policy under perishable goods and uncertain forecast information

Abstract

We consider the inventory control problem for Supply Chains (SC) with deteriorating items and an uncertain future customer demand freely varying inside a given compact set. The problem is to define a resilient Replenishment Policy (RP) keeping the actual inventory level as close as possible to a desired reference trajectory. This requirement should be satisfied despite uncertainties on the decay factor of stocked goods and unexpected customer demand patterns outside the bounds of the compact set. We propose a method based on a Resilient Robust Model Predictive Control (RRMPC) approach. This requires dealing with a Min-Max Constrained Optimization Problem (MMCOP). To reduce the numerical complexity of the algorithm, the control signal is parametrized using B-spline functions.