Operations planning in a supply chain system with fixed-interval deliveries of finished goods to multiple customers

Raw material ordering policy and the manufacturing batch size for fixed-int erval deliveries of finished goods to multiple customers play a significant role in economically managing the supply chain logistics. This paper devel ops an ordering policy for raw materials and determines an economic batch s ize for a product at a manufacturing center which supplies finished product s to multiple customers, with a fixed-quantity at a fixed time-interval to each of the customers. In this model, an optimal multi-ordering policy for procurement of raw materials for a single manufacturing system is developed to minimize the total cost incurred due to raw materials and finished good s inventories. The carried over inventory of finished goods from the previo us cycle is used as initial finished goods inventory, resulting in shifting the production schedule ahead for the next cycle. A closed-form solution t o the problem is obtained for the minimal total cost. The algorithm is demo nstrated for multiple customer systems.