Replenishment policy and inventory optimization for supply-hub with liability period consideration

A replenishment decision-making model for supply-hub is firstly established from the angle of supplier, and optimal replenishment decision of the supplier is analyzed. Then, inventory optimization model for supply-hub is formulated from the angle of the manufacturer, and the optimization algorithm for obtaining optimal inventory levels is given. The result shows that liability period decides the share of the inventory cost between two sides in supply chain. With the increase of liability period, the service level has been quickly reduced even though the manufacturer’s cost has been cut down by transferring the inventory cost to the supplier. As to the safety inventory, if the lower bound of components safety inventory increases, the supplier’s cost will rise up more slowly than the liability period does, while the service levels increases as the safety inventory’s lower bound is raised.