Integrated inventory and transportation decision for ubiquitous supply chain management

Abstract

We consider price-dependent demand and develop an integrated inventory and transportation policy with strategic pricing to maximize the total profit for a ubiquitous enterprise. The proposed policy provides the optimal ordering, shipment and pricing decision. We first assume that demand for a product is a linear function of the price. A mathematical model for the total profit under quantity based dispatch is developed in consideration of ordering, shipment and pricing variables. Optimality properties for the model are then obtained and an efficient algorithm is provided to compute the optimal parameters for ordering, shipment and pricing decision. Finally, we extend our results to a more general case where demand for the product is a convex or a concave function of the price.