Inventory Management with product returns: the value of information

Marisa de Brito () and Erwin van der Laan

ERIM Report Series Research in Management from Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam

Abstract: This paper evaluates the impact of misinformation for inventory systems with product returns. If one could exactly know how much is going to be returned and when, one would certainly benefit from incorporating this perfect information a priori in the management of production, inventory, and distribution. In practice, one has to attempt to forecast the timing and the amount of product returns, by hypothesizing about the return flow properties. To do so, historic data on demand and returns can be used. The available literature on information and inventory management with product returns commonly 1) assumes known return probabilities; or 2) considers specific cases where the most informed method does not necessarily lead to the best performance, investigating the impact on inventory related costs.

Keywords: forecasting; information management; inventory management; product returns (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M M11 R4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-09-25
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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