Inventory Control for Perishable Products and the Use of a New Technology

International audienceThis paper analyzes the impact of perishability on the well known (r, Q) review policy. We first formulate an (r, Q) inventory model for perishables with fixed lifetime. The expected quantity of perished products, the expected shortage and the expected inventory level are derived and a closed form expression of the average total cost per unit time is obtained. Then, we develop a numerical analysis to illustrate the advantages of using the proposed policy compared to the classical (r, Q) policy which ignores the perishability of products. Finally, we study the benefits of using a Time Temperature Integrator which is a new technology that enables to increase the lifetime of such products