Approximation Algorithms for Capacitated Perishable Inventory Systems with Positive Lead Times
针对正提前期和有限订购容量的易腐品库存系统，提出一个易于计算的近似算法，并证明其在独立和相关需求下的最坏情况性能保证，数值实验验证了有效性。
Managing perishable inventory systems with positive lead times and finite ordering capacities is important but notoriously difficult in both theory and computation. The optimal control policy is extremely complicated, and no effective heuristic policy has been proposed in the literature. In this paper, we develop an easy-to-compute approximation algorithm for this class of problems and prove that it admits a theoretical worst-case performance guarantee under independent and many commonly used positively correlated demand processes. Our worst-case analysis departs significantly from those in the previous studies, requiring several novel ideas. In particular, we introduce a transient unit-matching rule to dynamically match the supply and demand units, and the notion of associated demand processes that provides the right future demand information to establish the desired results. Our numerical study demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. This paper was accepted by Yinyu Ye, optimization.