mathematical approach to ordering policy selection for cold items in a warehouse with different operational constraints

According to the importance of keeping temperature-dependent products, the present study investigated the inventory control of cold products. in this study, a warehouse with limited space and ambient temperature is assumed. based on the assumptions of the problem, the best ordering system for cold products should be selected from the two fixed order size and periodic review systems by formulating a mixed integer nonlinear programming model. the objective of the model is to minimize the sum of costs, including adjusting the temperature of the products and the cost of producing fluoride gas produced by keeping them in the refrigerator and for both types of ordering systems, taking into account different constraints consisting of warehouse space, available budget, the storage temperature of the products in the warehouse and the maximum number of cold products that can follow any ordering system. finally, by solving the model, the type of ordering system for each product, the ordering system characteristics and their storage temperature are obtained. after solving the model, sensitivity analysis is performed on different parameters including available space for holding the products at the warehouse, available budget, the minimum number of the products that can follow a specific ordering system and shortage cost and the results are discussed.