Improving Distributed Decision Making in Inventory Management: A Combined ABC-AHP Approach Supported by Teamwork

Abstract

The need of organizations to ensure service levels that impact on customer satisfaction has required the design of collaborative processes among stakeholders involved in inventory decision making. The increase of quantity and variety of items, on the one hand, and demand and customer expectations, on the other hand, are transformed into a greater complexity in inventory management, requiring effective communication and agreements between the leaders of the logistics processes. Traditionally, decision making in inventory management was based on approaches conditioned only by cost or sales volume. These approaches must be overcome by others that consider multiple criteria, involving several areas of the companies and taking into account the opinions of the stakeholders involved in these decisions. Inventory management becomes part of a complex system that involves stakeholders from different areas of the company, where each agent has limited information and where the cooperation between such agents is key for the system’s performance. In this paper, a distributed inventory control approach was used with the decisions allowing communication between the stakeholders and with a multicriteria group decision-making perspective. This work proposes a methodology that combines the analysis of the value chain and the AHP technique, in order to improve communication and the performance of the areas related to inventory management decision making. This methodology uses the areas of the value chain as a theoretical framework to identify the criteria necessary for the application of the AHP multicriteria group decision-making technique. These criteria were defined as indicators that measure the performance of the areas of the value chain related to inventory management and were used to classify ABC inventory of the products according to these selected criteria. Therefore, the methodology allows us to solve inventory management DDM based on multicriteria ABC classification and was validated in a Colombian company belonging to the graphic arts sector.

Strategies for the Preservation of Service Levels in the Inventory Management During COVID-19: A Case Study in a Company of Biosafety Products

“…2013 ; Gómez 2019 ) Pérez Vergara et al. ( 2020 ) propose a combined ABC-AHP approach supported by teamwork, which involves all areas of the value chain, as a propitious framework for the improvement of distributed decision making in the inventory management, an approach that can be especially effective in managing current uncertainty, generating information exchange and participation in the decision making of interested parties, tending toward interoperability, in its organizational dimension.…”

“…A multi-expert multi-criteria framework is proposed for inventory management, considering that multi-criteria decision analysis provides the necessary flexibility to achieve integration, a greater commitment throughout the supply chain, which is guaranteed through greater interoperability between the links (Pérez Vergara et al. 2020 ).…”

“…Decisions related to inventory management are especially relevant in a customer service orientation approach, and they are part of a complex system that involves interest groups or stakeholders 2 parties from different areas of the company and the chain, where each agent has limited information and where cooperation between these agents is key to the performance of the system (Pérez Vergara et al. 2020 ).…”

O impacto da relação vendas-operação sobre o nível de serviço: pesquisa-ação sobre o transporte de carga aérea

“…Os princípios de sustentabilidade precisam estar integrados aos objetivos das empresas para que processos de melhoria contínua passem a fazer parte da cultura da empresa (Rentizelas et al, 2020). A abertura de mercados traz aumento de competitividade e demanda que as empresas busquem atender as expectativas crescentes de clientes por meio de controle de custos, qualidade e tempo de entrega de produtos (Pérez Vergara et al, 2020). Destaca-se como forma de estabelecimento do conceito de nível de serviço a consideração dos riscos como a probabilidade de ocorrência de falhas, a severidade da consequência de uma falha e a forma de detecção de uma falha (Faghih-Roohi et al, 2020).…”

Strategies for the preservation of service levels in the inventory management during COVID-19. A Case study in a company of biosafety products.

“…These decision makings are relevant when a customer satisfaction orientation is implemented, and they belong to a complex system which involves stakeholder of various internal and external areas from the company, where each agent possesses limited information, for that, cooperation between these agents is key for the performance system (Pérez Vergara et al 2020).…”