Alternative strategies for Vendor Managed Inventory systems in single-vendor/multi-buyer supply environments

The Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) represent one of the most pursued forms of collaboration which can be established in a supply network. In a VMI system the vendor manages the stocks in the warehouse of the customer and chooses when deliver a new stock of products and the dimension of this stock. In such context, the present research work proposes, through a comparative analysis of the deriving advantages, the application of provisioning management policies alternative to the traditional ones, with particular attention to the singlevendor and multi-buyer environments. The comparison, based on the determination of the total costs of the supply process, has been carried out through the use of opportunely developed simulation models. The analysis of the obtained results has evidenced profitable aspects, however conditioned by the interactions existing between the actors of the supply network.