Optimal Replenishment and Breeding Policies for Growing Items

This study addresses optimal management policies for an emerging class of inventories which are known as growing items (e.g., fast-growing young animals like poultry). The paper models the inventory system of a rearing farm where newborn animals are bought, raised and finally slaughtered and quality controlled. The negative impact of overbreeding is heeded to preserve the quality of the items and decrease food waste. The slaughtered items are used as final products to satisfy customer demand. The quality degradation of these items is modeled as deterioration. An analytic solution procedure is developed to optimize the purchasing quantity of the newborn animals and their breeding period. The proposed structure is illustrated through experimental results. The results suggest that the breeding period is strongly affected by the pattern of growth and cost factors are not as influential as the parameters of the growth function. This highlights the significance of estimating an accurate growth pattern for the items.