Title: Impact of inventory sharing on service availability and transportation levels in time-differentiated distribution

Authors: Mohsin Nasir Jat; Raza Ali Rafique

Addresses: Suleman Dawood School of Business, Lahore University of Management Sciences, DHA, Cantt, 54792, Lahore, Pakistan ' Suleman Dawood School of Business, Lahore University of Management Sciences, DHA, Cantt, 54792, Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract: This paper studies service availability and transportation performance measures considering a service system with two delivery time-window options. The performance measures are examined through a simulation analysis comparing inventory sharing and non-sharing scenarios under a centralised and a decentralised setup of service facilities. The analysis considers varying demand composition in terms of demand percentages of different service time options. Unlike the existing work in this area, the paper takes into account the spatial factor and argues that considering a uniform cost of alternate shipments may not be appropriate. The analysis highlights that there might be instances where introducing inventory sharing does not implicate an inventory-transportation performance trade off.

Keywords: inventory sharing; service logistics; distribution; service time differentiation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIR.2017.085374

International Journal of Inventory Research, 2017 Vol.4 No.1, pp.23 - 43

Received: 11 Jan 2017
Accepted: 20 Feb 2017
Published online: 24 Jul 2017 *

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