Determination of Inventory Management Policies in Process Manufacturing: Using Discrete Event Simulation

Abstract

The increasing attention to customer demands in the product process, and the inevitable features and costs of production processes has led researchers to manage orders and choose the right policy for inventory management. This article identifies the structure for determining the optimal location of the Customer Order Decoupling Point and the optimal inventory management policy as one of the most important strategic decisions in the production process. So, we developed a discrete-event simulation model for realistic calculation of cost and Flow time, under different scenarios, and we used the production and sales information of a chemical plant for validation and implementation of the model. The results suggest that the use of a hybrid inventory management policy reduces the cost and delivery time.

Keywords

• discrete event simulation
• process manufacturing
• inventory management
• customer order decoupling point