Heuristics for the joint multi-item replenishment problem under trade credits

This study deals with a joint multi-item replenishment problem under trade credit. Most existing studies about trade credit focus on a single-item replenishment policy. However, joint multi-item replenishment has been widely applied in many industries to take advantage of transport economies of scale. This paper extends the traditional inventory model by considering trade credit and multi-item replenishment in order to better reflect the real-world business situation. The objective is to determine the optimal replenishment schedule for each item while minimizing the total cost. Two heuristics, namely, cost balancing and extreme finding, are developed to resolve this problem. A numerical analysis illustrates the solution procedures and compares the two heuristics.