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A diagnostic analysis of retail out-of-stocks

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dc.contributor.advisor Stephen C. Graves. en_US
dc.contributor.author Foo, Yong Ning en_US
dc.contributor.other Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computation for Design and Optimization Program. en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2008-05-19T16:13:07Z
dc.date.available 2008-05-19T16:13:07Z
dc.date.copyright 2007 en_US
dc.date.issued 2007 en_US
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41734
dc.description Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Computation for Design and Optimization Program, 2007. en_US
dc.description Includes bibliographical references (p. 101). en_US
dc.description.abstract In the highly competitive retail industry, merchandise out-of-stock (OOS) is a significant and pertinent problem. This thesis performs a diagnostic analysis on retail out-of-stocks using empirical data from a major retailer. In this thesis, we establish the empirical relationship of OOS rate with the amount of safety stock carried, the time between orders and the forecast error, providing insights to the effects of these three factors on the probability of OOS occurrences. The root causes of OOS are also examined in the thesis. We find that up to 34% of OOS can be attributed to forecast error while up to 22% can be attributed to delay in order replenishment. For the OOSs that were associated with order delay, we can trace 60% of these to out-of-stock at the store's distribution center (DC). The thesis also examines a peculiarity in the occurrence of OOSs. We found that the OOS rate of Class C items is significantly higher in stores with higher sales volume. We can attribute much of this phenomenon to three factors: stores with higher sales volume hold less safety stock for Class C items, have a shorter time between orders and have relatively larger forecast errors. en_US
dc.description.provenance Made available in DSpace on 2008-05-19T16:13:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 225092330.pdf: 7715098 bytes, checksum: 92c21e80014ac7713e12b77093e09d00 (MD5) 225092330-MIT.pdf: 7714901 bytes, checksum: fcc5770f69478318ec686ac861c8dd9b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 en
dc.description.statementofresponsibility by Yong Ning Foo. en_US
dc.format.extent 101 p. en_US
dc.language.iso eng en_US
dc.publisher Massachusetts Institute of Technology en_US
dc.rights M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. en_US
dc.rights.uri http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 en_US
dc.subject Computation for Design and Optimization Program. en_US
dc.title A diagnostic analysis of retail out-of-stocks en_US
dc.title.alternative Diagnostic analysis of retail OOSs en_US
dc.type Thesis en_US
dc.description.degree S.M. en_US
dc.contributor.department Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computation for Design and Optimization Program. en_US
dc.identifier.oclc 225092330 en_US

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