The document summarizes research on consignment and vendor managed inventory partnerships in a single-vendor, multiple-buyer supply chain. It presents models to analyze the total costs under three scenarios: no partnership, vendor managed inventory/consignment partnership, and centralized control. The models consider factors like ordering, holding, and shipment costs for both the vendor and buyers. The analysis found that a hybrid vendor managed inventory and consignment partnership can minimize the joint costs of the manufacturer and retailers through optimizing the shipment size, number, and replenishment cycle length.
1. 1
KING FAHD UNIVERSITY OF PETROLEUM & MINERALS
INDUSTRIAL & SYSTEMS ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
Report on:
CONSIGNMENT AND VENDOR MANAGED INVENTORY IN
SINGLE-VENDOR MULTIPLE BUYERS SUPPLY CHAINS
Mohamed Ben-Daya, Elkafi Hassini, Moncer Hariga, and Mohammad M.
AlDurgam
International Journal of Production Research 51(2013), 1347-1365.
By
Mohammed Al-Marhoun
Term 131
1. Objective
2. 2
Study the values of using a hybrid Vendor Managed Inventory and Consignment
(VMI&CS) partnership inventory program. Through finding the number of shipments
and replenishment cycle time of each batch such that the joint manufacturer and retailer
cost is minimized
2. Introduction
Vendor-buyer partnerships:
i. The vendor and the buyers act independently.
ii. The vendor enters in a VMI&CS partnership with the buyers.
iii. The vendor and the buyer belong to a vertically integrated firm where a single
decision maker decides about the ordering policy.
Consignment (CS):
The process of a supplier placing goods at a customer location without receiving payment
until after the goods are used or sold.
Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI):
The vendor is responsible for managing the inventory for the buyer, including initiating
orders on behalf of the buyer. The vendor in return gets more visibility about the
product’s demand.
Share of cost and decisions in a supply chain under VMI, CS and VMI&CS inventory
management programs
3. 3
Decision Cost
Order quantity Number of shipments Ordering Holding
VMI Vendor Vendor Shared Buyer
CS Buyer Buyer Buyer Shared
VMI&CS Vendor Vendor Shared Shared
3. Notation
A
bpi
:
the cost of placing an order by the i
th
buyer ($/order)
A
bri
: the cost of receiving a shipment by the i
th
buyer ($/order)
A
bi
:
i
th
buyer’s total ordering cost composed of the cost of placing an order and the
cost of receiving a shipment (A
bi
= A
bpi
+ A
bri
) ($/order)
h
boi
: i
th
buyer’s opportunity cost of holding one unit in stock for one unit of time
($/unit/unit time)
H
bsi
: i
th
buyer’s physical storage cost for one unit of stock held for one unit of time
($/unit/unit time)
h
bi
:
i
th
buyer’s total holding cost per unit of stock per unit of time (h
bi
= h
boi
+ h
bsi
)
A
vs
: Vendor’s setup cost ($/order)
A
vri
:
Vendor’s shipment release cost to the i
th
buyer ($/order)
h
v
: Vendor’s total cost of holding one unit in stock for one unit of time
($/unit/unit time)
4. 4
c : Unit purchase price paid by the buyers ($/unit).
n : equal number of shipment that is sent to buyers during a cycle
N : Number of buyers
di
: demand from buyer i (units)
D : total demand of buyers = ∑ di
N
i=1 (units)
P : vendor’s production rate (units/unit time)
Decision and consequence variables
q
i
: shipment size for buyer i
Q : Total shipments sizes to all buyers = ∑ 𝑞𝑖
𝑁
𝑖=1
T : replenishment cycle length
TC
k
s
: Total cost for supply chain party k, where k = v (vendor) and k = bi (buyer i)
under system s=1 (no partnership), s = 2 (Vendor managed inventory and
consignment) and s = 3 (centralized)
TC
s
: Total cost for system s=1 (no partnership), s = 2 (Vendor-managed inventory
and consignment) and s = 3 (centralized).
4. Assumptions
5. 5
1. Share of ordering and holding costs in the different supply chain scenarios
Supply Chain
Structure
Supply
Chain Partner
Independent
parties
VMI&CS Centralized
Costs Costs Costs
Ordering Holding Ordering Holding Ordering Holding
Vendor
Avs
Avri
hv
Abpi
Avs
Avri
hboi
hv
Abi
Avs
Avri
hbi
hv
Buyer Abi hbi Abri hbsi
2. The shipments to the buyers are time-phased and their sizes are not proportional to
the buyer’s demand (equal shipments).
3. A cyclic delivery policy where the shipment is sent to each buyer and then repeat this
cycle until all shipments are delivered.
6. 6
Figure 1. Cyclic delivery policy
5. Models
1.1 No partnership
No coordination between the vendor and buyers and all parties act independently and
attempt to optimize their own cost without taking into consideration the decision of the
other parties.
Buyer:
𝑇𝐶 𝑏𝑖
1 =
𝐴 𝑏𝑖
𝑇𝑏𝑖
+ ℎ 𝑏𝑖
𝑞𝑖
1
2
=
𝐴 𝑏𝑖 𝑑𝑖
𝑞𝑖
1 + ℎ 𝑏𝑖
𝑞𝑖
1
2
14. 14
−1 + √1 + 4𝛽
2
< 𝑛 <
1 + √1 + 4𝛽
2
𝑛2
∗
= ⌈
−1 + √1 + 4𝛽
2
⌉
𝑇𝐶𝑏𝑖
2
=
𝑛𝐴 𝑏𝑟𝑖
𝑇
+
𝑇
2
𝑑𝑖 (1 −
𝐷
𝑃
+
𝐷
𝑛𝑃
)
Example 2: Consider the same data as in example 1
Abp1= 15 Abp2= 50 hbo1= 2.5 hb02= 2
n2
* = 3 T2* = 0.657
TCv
2= 1810.72 < TCv
1 TCb1
2= 328.04 < TCb1
1 TCb2
2= 791.86 < TCb2
1
TC2= 2930.61 < TC1
The partnership is efficient since all members realized cost savings
“Efficient partnership”
Example 3: Consider the same data as in example 1
Abp1= 20 Abp2= 65 hbo1= 4.5 hbo2=4.5
n2
* = 3 T2
* = 0.504
TCv
2= 2600.29 > TCv
1 TCb1
2= 73.07 < TCb1
1 TCb2
2= 146.14 <TCb2
1
15. 15
TC2= 2819.50 < TC1
The supply chain cost is smaller than the one with no partnership, but the vendor is now
worse off.
“potentially efficient partnership”
Partnership coordination through side payments
• If vendor is worse off, some of the buyers’ savings can be transferred to the vendor
through a unit price increase.
• The maximum price increase is the one that makes at least one buyer indifferent to
go for the partnership.
• The minimum price increase is the one that makes the vendor no worse off without
partnership.
• Similarly, when the partnership achieves system-wide savings and some buyers (or
all of them) are worse off, the vendor can offer a price discount to these buyers as an
incentive to accept the partnership.
Proposition 1.
To achieve coordination the vendor can vary the unit price c in the range [Cmin, Cmax]
where
𝑐 𝑚𝑖𝑛 = 𝑐 +
𝑇𝐶 𝑣
2
− 𝑇𝐶 𝑣
1
∑ 𝑑𝑖
𝑁
𝑖=1
𝑐 𝑚𝑎𝑥 = 𝑐 + 𝑚𝑖𝑛1≤𝑖≤𝑁 [
𝑇𝐶 𝑏
2
− 𝑇𝐶 𝑏
1
𝑑𝑖
]
Proof.
The minimum price increase is the one that makes the vendor no worse off without
partnership.
16. 16
𝑐 𝑚𝑖𝑛 − 𝑐 =
𝑇𝐶 𝑣
2
− 𝑇𝐶 𝑣
1
∑ 𝑑𝑖
𝑁
𝑖=1
By definition the maximum price increase is obtained by finding the maximum price that
satisfies all the following inequalities:
𝑐𝑑𝑖 + 𝑇𝐶 𝑏𝑖
1
≥ 𝑐 𝑚𝑎𝑥 𝑑𝑖 + 𝑇𝐶 𝑏𝑖
2 For i= 1, 2, … , N
Example 4:
Abp2= 40
TCv
2= 1759.99 TCb1
2= 342.31 TCb2
2= 883.99
TC2= 2986.29
Only Buyer 1 is better off
1.3 Centralized supply chain
The vendor and buyers are part of a vertically integrated supply chain under a common
control.
𝑇𝐶3 = 𝑇𝐶 𝑣
3
+ ∑ 𝑇𝐶 𝑏𝑖
3
𝑁
𝑖=1
𝑇𝐶3 =
𝐴 𝑣𝑠 + 𝑛 ∑ 𝐴 𝑣𝑟𝑖
𝑁
𝑖=1
𝑇
+
𝑇
2
(
ℎ 𝑣
𝑛𝑃
∑ 𝑑𝑖
2
𝑁
𝑖=1
)