Glossary · problem
Joint Replenishment Problem
Operations research problem of coordinating the order frequencies of N SKUs that share a major supplier setup cost (truck haul, customs filing, supplier-order setup), to minimise total long-run cost (setup plus holding).
Joint ReplenishmentJRPCoordinated Multi-Item Inventory
Joint Replenishment Problem (JRP) is the multi-product inventory control problem in which N SKUs share a major setup cost (one truck haul, one customs filing, one supplier-order setup) and individual minor (SKU-specific) setup costs. The objective is to determine per-SKU order cycles that minimise the total long-run average cost (setup plus holding). The optimal policy structure typically involves a base period T plus integer or power-of-two multipliers per item (Roundy 1985). Foundational model: Goyal (1973); modern survey: Khouja and Goyal (2008). Deterministic (fixed demand) and stochastic (random demand with can-order policy, Atkins and Iyogun 1988) variants exist. Unlike the single-SKU (s,S) reorder-point policy, JRP explicitly models the shared major setup and produces a coordinated order schedule; for retail-wholesale chains, import-heavy distribution and supplier-concentrated SMB retailers it can cut total annual cost by 5-25%.
Örnek
A furniture distributor pulls 400 SKUs from 8 main suppliers; a JRP model (with a power-of-two policy and 2-week base period) cuts total truck count by 18% and total order plus holding cost by 12%.