Inventory Models for Fresh Agriculture Products with Time-Varying Deterioration Rate

Abstract

This paper presents inventory models for fresh agriculture products with time-varying deterioration rate. Due to the particularity of fresh agriculture products, the demand rate is a function that depends on sale price and freshness. The deterioration rate increases with time and is assumed to be a time-varying function. In the models, the inventory cycle may be constant or variable. The optimal solutions of models are discussed for different freshness and the deterioration rate. The results of experiments show that the profit depends on the freshness and deterioration rate of products. With the increasing inventory cycle, the sale price and profit increase at first and then start decreasing. Furthermore, when the inventory cycle is variable, the total profit is a binary function of the sale price and inventory cycle. There exist unique sale price and inventory cycle such that the profit is optimal. The results also show that the optimal sale price and inventory cycle depend on the freshness and the deterioration rate of fresh agriculture products.