Special session — Inventory control for production, logistics and supply chain management

Inventory management is crucial in today's supply chains subject to variable and uncertain customer demand. It basically aims at deciding: what product to order/produce, when to order/produce and how many products to order/produce. Considerable research work has been developed in the area of flow management and inventory control during recent decades. The existing research covers several branches of inventory control and modeling such as: deterministic and stochastic models, single and multi-item, single and multilocation models, etc. However, despite the many contributions in the relevant literature, there are still many new and unresolved issues for both researchers and practitioners. The organizers of this special session would like to invite theoretical and/or empirical contributions that advance the current state of knowledge in this area. The session addresses issues related to various aspects of inventory control. Potential topics include, but are not limited to: • Inventory control for production systems, approaches and methods of materials; • management; • Inventory control for distribution systems; • Global sourcing and inventory control; • Multi item/multi supplier inventory control; • Multi echelon inventory control; • Perishable products inventory control; • Inventory control for intermittent demand; • Inventory control based on RFID systems; • Inventory control systems (ICS) — Inventory software; • Inventory control in specific sectors (automobile, retail, fashion goods, …).