Identifying inventory excess and service risk in medical devices : a simulation approach
Author(s)
Rey, Maria (Maria de los Santos); Xu, Xiaofan
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Other Contributors
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Supply Chain Management Program.
Advisor
Omar Sherif Elwakil.
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Medical devices companies struggle to balance between inventory and service performance, as the products are non-interchangeable and inventory investment is expensive. To find the right level of inventory, we first used unsupervised clustering method to find demand pattern uncertainty for each product. Then, we developed a simulation-based approach to determine the required inventory to achieve a required service level guarantee. We further explored policy changes in the demand fulfillment process to identify how the company can effectively improve performance without increasing inventory level. After comparing different results, we concluded that reduction of replenishment lead time is the most effective measure. The methodology can be applied to a wide range of products and sectors.
Description
Thesis: M. Eng. in Supply Chain Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Supply Chain Management Program, 2017. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (pages 81-82).
Date issued
2017Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Supply Chain Management ProgramPublisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Keywords
Supply Chain Management Program.