Inventory replenishment with interdependent ordering costs: An evolutionary algorithm solution

Interdependence of minor ordering costs occurs in joint replenishment of inventory when the cost of placing an item in an order depends on which other items are also in the order. In this paper, we propose an evolutionary algorithm (EA) for joint replenishment of inventory which allows for the interdependence of minor ordering costs. Since solutions to the joint replenishment problem (JRP) can be represented by integer decision variables, this makes the JRP a good candidate for an EA. The results of testing 2430 randomly generated problems show that our algorithm provides close to optimal results for some problems.