Several papers have studied inventory classification in order to group items with a view to facilitating their management. The generated classes are then coupled with the specific re-order policies composing the overall inventory control system. However, the effectiveness of inventory classification and control system are strictly interrelated. That is to say, different classification approaches could show different performance if applied to a different set of re-order policies, and vice versa. Furthermore, when the cost structure is subjected to uncertainty, a pure cost-based analysis of the inventory control system could be corrupted. This paper presents a multi-criteria framework for the concurrent selection of the item classification approach and the inventory control system through a discrete-event simulation approach. The key performance indicators provided by the simulator (i.e. average holding value, average number of backorders, and average number of emitted orders) are indicative of the multidimensional effectiveness of the adopted inventory control system when coupled with a specific classification approach. By this way, a multi-criteria problem arises, where the alternatives are given by exhaustively coupling the item classes, which are generated by different classification approaches, with the re-order policies composing the inventory system. An analytical hierarchy process is then used for selecting the best alternative, as well as for evaluating the effect of the weights assigned to the key performance indicators through a sensitivity analysis. This approach has been validated in a real case study with a company operating in the field of electrical resistor manufacturing, with a view of facilitating the management of items showing intermittent demand.

中文翻译：

---

适用于间歇性需求的库存分类和控制的多标准框架

有几篇论文研究了库存分类，以便对物料进行分组，以促进其管理。然后，将生成的类与构成整个库存控制系统的特定重新订购策略结合在一起。但是，库存分类和控制系统的有效性是严格相关的。也就是说，如果将不同的分类方法应用于不同的重新排序策略集，则可能会表现出不同的性能，反之亦然。此外，当成本结构面临不确定性时，库存控制系统的基于成本的纯分析可能会遭到破坏。本文提出了一个多准则框架，用于通过离散事件模拟方法同时选择物料分类方法和库存控制系统。模拟器提供的关键绩效指标（即平均持有价值，平均未交货订单数量和平均已发出订单数量）指示了采用特定分类方法时所采用的库存控制系统的多维有效性。通过这种方式，出现了多准则问题，其中，通过将由不同分类方法生成的项目类别与构成库存系统的重新订购策略穷尽地结合在一起，给出了备选方案。然后使用层次分析法来选择最佳方案，并通过敏感性分析评估分配给关键绩效指标的权重的效果。