Determination of the Safety Stock for Intermittent Demand: the Grey and Hybrid Theories

Abstract

This study seeks to introduce the influential factors in controlling and dealing with uncertainty in intermittent demand. Hybrid forecasting and Grey Theory, due to their potential in facing complex nature, insufficient data, have been used simultaneously. Different modeling, unbiased weighting results have been used in estimating the safety stock(SS) by both theoretical and experimental methods. In other words, this work deals with the less studied feature of various modeling errors and their effect on SS determination and recommends its use to address the uncertainty of intermittent demand as a criterion for introducing a superior model in the field of inventory.

Keywords

• intermittent demand
• safety stock
• grey forecasting
• hybrid modeling
• croston method