Strategic Inventory Positioning: A modeling perspective from DDMRP to AHP

Abstract

In this Master’s Degree thesis is addressed the problem of Strategic Inventory Positioning. The increasing complexity and importance of Supply Chain Management and especially of Inventory Management have been the reason for research on Strategic Inventory Positioning. The first chapter of the thesis is about the evolution that started with MRP and led to DDMRP; tracing this evolution it is required in order to understand in which environment planners are now operating and which are the necessities that have made essential a research on Strategic Inventory Positioning. The main features of DDMRP methodology will be briefly explained in order to understand DDMRP’s Strategic Inventory Positioning, which is the first of the element that composes DDMRP. In the second chapter two methodologies and two models for Strategic Inventory Positioning will be presented. The two methodologies that will be explained are DDMRP’s Strategic Inventory Positioning of C. Ptak and C. Smith and Analytic Hierarchy Process for Strategic Inventory Positioning while the two models for Strategic Inventory Positioning are SPI model from Skintzi G. et al. and WY model from Wybark D.C. and Yang S. In the third chapter, the models will be stress-tested in order to understand which are the variables that affect the most the models and consequently Strategic Inventory Positioning.