Integrating credit and replenishment policies for deteriorating items under quadratic demand in a three echelon supply chain

Abstract

This paper deals with a supply chain that is comprised of a single manufacturer, a single distributor and a single retailer. This supply chain is studied and analysed when demand is time and credit period dependent. The items in each member of the chain are subject to deteriorate at a constant rate. The objective is to minimise the total cost of the supply chain with respect to number of shipments among members, cycle time and credit period offered by the distributor to retailer. Scenarios are established and illustrated with numerical examples. Sensitivity analysis is done to deduce managerial insights.