EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

A comparison of the constant-order and dual-index policy for dual sourcing

Steffen Klosterhalfen, Gudrun Kiesmüller and Stefan Minner

International Journal of Production Economics, 2011, vol. 133, issue 1, 302-311

Abstract: We analyze a single-product, periodic-review, stochastic demand inventory model with backorders and two supply options, a regular and a more expensive expedited one, with deterministic, offsetting lead times. Since the optimal policy for such a problem is generally unknown, several simpler policies have been proposed in the literature, e.g., the single-index (SIP), dual-index (DIP), or constant-order policy (COP). In previous research the DIP has been found to perform closely to the optimal policy in specific numerical settings. The COP, on the other hand, is very appealing from a practical point of view. We explore the relative cost performance of these two policies in a numerical study to gain insights into appropriate policy choices. We find that in settings, where dual sourcing is most valuable, the simpler COP delivers satisfactory results, sometimes even better ones than the DIP, and therefore represents a legitimate policy alternative for practical situations.

Keywords: Dual; sourcing; Dual; index; Constant; order; Multiple; suppliers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925527310000538
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:proeco:v:133:y:2011:i:1:p:302-311

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Production Economics is currently edited by Stefan Minner

More articles in International Journal of Production Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-23
Handle: RePEc:eee:proeco:v:133:y:2011:i:1:p:302-311