Over the years, several companies have emerged as exemplary of “best practices” in supply
chain management; for example, Wal-Mart is frequently cited as using unique strategies to …

We develop the first approximation algorithms with worst-case performance guarantees for
periodic-review perishable inventory systems with general product lifetime, for both …

Blood platelets are precious, as voluntarily supplied by donors, and highly perishable, with
limited lifetimes of 5–7 days. Demand is highly variable and uncertain. A practical production …

In clinical practice, red blood cells (RBCs) have a maximal shelf life (MSL) of 42 days.
Recent studies suggest managing RBC inventory with a more restrictive MSL. To this end, a …

Platelets are short-life blood components used in hospital blood transfusion centers.
Excluding time for transportation, testing, and arrangement, clinically transfusable platelets …

We consider a discrete-time supply chain for perishable goods having separate demand
streams for items of different ages. For a good that has two periods of lifetime, we build a …

Managing perishable inventory systems with positive lead times and finite ordering
capacities is important but notoriously difficult in both theory and computation. The optimal …

Preferences for different ages of perishable products exist in many applications, including
grocery items and blood products. In this paper, we study a multi‐period stochastic …

Retail inventory management of perishable items, like fresh food, is a relevant and complex
problem. It is relevant in the light of trends towards the reduction of food waste, and because …

The present study investigates the benefit of joint decision making regarding whole blood
collection and platelet production at a blood center. We consider a blood center that faces …