Desired Trajectory-Based Sliding Mode Control for Multiple Perishable Inventory Systems

This paper tackles the problem of supply chain management for multiple warehouse perishable inventory system. The study takes into account a single product perishable inventory system combined of multiple smaller warehouses with one distribution warehouse as a supplier. Each of the endpoint warehouses realizes a predefined demand profile, resulting from its contractual obligations, plus answers to the random customers. As the demand is partially a priori known, their delivery schedule may be shaped in advance. Moreover, in each of the warehouses some product may perish during the delivery and storage process, which must be accounted for and appropriately compensated. The endpoint facilities are all supplied from one main warehouse, with multiple suppliers, characterized by different lead times. The main warehouse’s demand is a sum of the resupply orders of its dependent facilities. Therefore, the paper proposes a desired trajectory based sliding mode control strategy for all the warehouses in the system. The paper shows that application of a reference trajectory following control law ensures full demand satisfaction in all parts of the system while significantly simplifying the control design process. The features of the proposed control strategy are finally demonstrated with a simulation example.