Inventory sharing via circular unidirectional chaining
We studied inventory pooling through a circular unidirectional chaining (UDC). An optimality condition is derived analytically and insights are provided. UDC is effective compared to no pooling while requiring few transportation links. For some sets of parameter values, UDC performs close to complete pooling. Performance of symmetrical UDC is independent of the number of locations beyond two.
inventory pooling supply chain management lateral transshipments