Ankara : The Department of Industrial Engineering and the Graduate School of Engineering and Science of Bilkent University, 2012.Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent University, 2012.Includes bibliographical references.Return of a sold item by a customer becomes tremendously common situation in
many industries. Increase in the amount of returned items promotes return
information to be a critical factor for inventory control. Undoubtedly another critical
parameter for an inventory system is the length of the review period. Effect of the
review period or length of the time-bucket is amplified with returned items, because
available return information at a decision point is related to the frequency of the
review. In this study, we analyze the effects of these two parameters over a multiperiod
inventory system where the length of a time horizon is fixed. Dynamic
programming approach is used to calculate the optimal inventory positions. In
dynamic programming, it is assumed that a fixed proportion of sold items are
returned. Computational results are obtained to compare the effects of return
information under different return proportions and period lengths. These results are
used to conduct various analyses to explore the level of the advantage gained by
using return information.Erikçi, İsmailM.S
