A coordinated multi-item inventory system for perishables with random lifetime

This paper considers the continuous review can-order (s,c,S) policy for coordinating the replenishment of multiple perishable items with random lifetimes. For zero lead time, we model this inventory system as a Markov process. An iterative procedure is proposed to solve the joint replenishment problem for perishable items under positive lead time. We investigate the impact of perishability and cost parameters on the performance of the can-order policy and compare it to the optimal periodic review (s,S) policy.