Distributionally robust front distribution center inventory optimization with uncertain multi-item orders

As a new retail model, the front distribution center (FDC) has been recognized as an effective instrument for timely order delivery. However, the high customer demand uncertainty, multi-item order pattern, and limited inventory capacity pose a challenging task for FDC managers to determine the optimal inventory level. To this end, this paper proposes a two-stage distributionally robust (DR) FDC inventory model and an efficient row-and-column generation (RCG) algorithm. The proposed DR model uses a Wasserstein distance-based distributional set to describe the uncertain demand and utilizes a robust conditional value at risk decision criterion to mitigate the risk of distribution ambiguity. The proposed RCG is able to solve the complex max-min-max DR model exactly by repeatedly solving relaxed master problems and feasibility subproblems. We show that the optimal solution of the non-convex feasibility subproblem can be obtained by solving two linear programming problems. Numerical experiments based on real-world data highlight the superior out-of-sample performance of the proposed DR model in comparison with an existing benchmark approach and validate the computational efficiency of the proposed algorithm.