A Review on Policies and Supply Chain Relationships under Inventory Transshipment

Abstract

In distribution systems, excess stocks can be shared across different locations to fulfill unsatisfied demand. This raises many operations problems including inventory policies, transportation, partner selection and contracts. This paper reviews the up-to-date literature in inventory transshipment by considering different supply chain structures - centralized or decentralized, and whether the transshipment involves physical movement of the stocks, or is virtual. A number of future directions are provided in stimulating relevant studies.

Keywords: transshipment, inventory, supply chain, centralization, decentralization, competition, cooperation

JEL Classification: C44, C70