A volume flexible production-policy for randomly deteriorating item with trended demand and shortages

This paper develops an inventory model of a volume flexible manufacturing system for a deteriorating item with randomly distributed shelf life, continuous time-varying demand, and shortages over a finite time horizon. It is assumed that the produced units deteriorate over time with uncertainty that follows different distributions (Uniform distribution, two parameters Weibull distribution). Total cost is derived for the system and minimized. Genetic algorithm (GA) is developed with Roulette wheel selection, arithmetic crossover, random mutation and applied to evaluate the minimum total cost and the corresponding optimum decision variables. The model is illustrated with some numerical data. Here we present the fractional factorial design approach for this model along with its practical implication. Also some sensitivity analyses for the total cost with respect to some system parameters are presented.