Determination of shipping timing in logistics warehouse considering shortage and disposal in textile industry

In recent years, with the increasing diversification of customer preferences, apparel manufacturers have been producing a growing number of products in several colors and sizes. Moreover, they sell not only clothes but also accessories such as bags and shoes, adding to their number of products. Product life cycle is extremely short, generally one season. Also, products are mainly sold during first a few weeks of a season, and because trends change quickly in textile industry, it is difficult for manufacturers to anticipate what is required by customers in time to meet demand, creating shortages or large quantities of unsold products. When unsold products cannot be sold to other channels, it leads to disposal. One of the reasons for excessive disposal is that the distributor miss timing of shipments from the logistics warehouse to the stores. To reduce shortage, Tanaka et al. (2018) used sales information to develop a method to determine shipment timing. However, they did not decide shipment timing considering shortages and disposal simultaneously. This study aims to support distributors' decision-making by analyzing inventory data of logistics warehouse. For that purpose, this study proposes a method to reduce shortages and disposal of products, and introduce an evaluation index. First, appropriate shipping timing are forecast. Then, an evaluation index clarifies how cost varies when considering only shortage and when considering both shortage and disposal.