The Continuous-Time Joint Replenishment Problem: ∈-Optimal Policies via Pairwise Alignment

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Segev, Danny
• 署名单位: Tel Aviv University; Tel Aviv University
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2023.00705
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: Inventory Management; JRP; approximation scheme

摘要

The main contribution of this paper resides in developing a new algorithmic approach for addressing the continuous-time joint replenishment problem, termed Psi-pairwise alignment. The latter mechanism, through which we synchronize multiple economic order quantity models, allows us to devise a purely combinatorial algorithm for efficiently approximating optimal policies within any degree of accuracy. As a result, our work constitutes the first quantitative improvement over power-of-2 policies, which have been state-of-the-art in this context since the mid-1980s. Moreover, in light of recent intractability results, by proposing an efficient polynomial-time approximation scheme for the joint replenishment problem, we resolve the long-standing open question regarding the computational complexity of this classical setting.