![](bg8.png)
”a priori” knowledge of the maximum value d
max,1
of
the end-customer demand over an indefinitely long
future time interval. Moreover, as d
max,1
is never
exactly known, it is often over-estimated.
The diagrams displayed in figure 4 and the entries
of columns 5-7 of table 3 show that the DRMPC pol-
icy provides a smoother control signal with respect
to the DTCM strategy. Moreover figure 4 evidences
how the interval containing each replenishment order
u
i
(k) is tighter in the DRMPC strategy. Our approach
is able to limit the amplitude of such intervals and
consequently to strictly control the FF2 of BE.
7 CONCLUSIONS
The main novelties we propose in this paper are: 1)
the supply chain dynamics is characterized by per-
ishable goods with uncertain decay factor, 2) the
proposed DRMPC approach provides a B-splines
parametrization of the replenishment order. The
B-splines parametrization allows us to reformulate
the min-max optimization problem implied by the
DRMPC as a simpler WCRLS estimation problem.
The method we propose also allows us to define a
time-varying inventory level conciliating the opposite
control requirements CR1 and CR2. CR3 is addressed
penalizing the difference between control moves and
also parametrizing the control moves as polynomial
B-spline functions. The numerical test confirms the
validity of the approach: it is actually able to reduce
the inventory level without affecting customer service
quality and without incurring an excessive control ef-
fort.
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