Priority Allocation in a Rental Model with Decreasing Demand

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jain, Apurva; Moinzadeh, Kamran; Dumrongsiri, Aussadavut
• 署名单位: University of Washington; University of Washington Seattle; Thammasat University
• 刊物名称: M&SOM-MANUFACTURING & SERVICE OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1523-4614
• DOI: 10.1287/msom.2014.0515
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 236-248
• 关键词: inventory theory and control

摘要

We analyze a model of rental and return process where limited inventory of a product is rented to two customer classes that differ in their return behavior and penalty costs. The rental demand is a decreasing function of time. We consider two cases: where a demand that is not met is lost and where an unmet demand returns. We show that to minimize penalty cost, the optimal allocation policy may give priority to different classes at different points in time and may decline lower-class demand for some time. Computational results show the benefit of the optimal allocation policy over a priority scheme reportedly used in practice.