A multi-period inventory model with price, time and service level dependent demand under preservation technology investment

Price and time are two important parameters having significant impact on market demand, especially for fashion items, newly launched electronic products, etc. After-sale service facility offered by the retailers is seen to boost demand while investing in preservation technology reduces product spoilage. All these issues are taken into consideration while developing a multi-period inventory model where market demand depends on all three of the above-mentioned factors. The replenishment cycles are all of equal length, but due to the time-dependent nature of demand, the stock-in (and consequently stock-out) periods in the cycles are allowed to vary. The policy of planned shortages followed by replenishment in each cycle is adopted and seen to be fruitful indeed. Learning effect in holding and ordering costs are taken into account. The effects of limited capital and warehousing space are investigated. Numerical examples are employed to demonstrate the developed model and gain managerial insights from it. [Received: 23 December 2022; Accepted: 3 August 2023]