Performance & Evaluation

🗓️ The Scenario

Today is Monday, April 15th, 2024. It’s early morning. You are the inventory planner of a retail chain.

Every week before the store opens, you must place an order to your central warehouse, which will be delivered in two weeks. You know your current stock and incoming deliveries, and you have access to around three years of historical weekly sales and stock availability.

You are now in charge. Your job is to place orders over six consecutive weeks to keep your stores well-stocked, avoiding lost sales and holding costs.

📦 Rules & Simulation Details

• Objective: Minimize total cost, computed as holding cost + shortage cost
• Holding Cost: 0.2€ per unit of inventory left at the end of a week
  (No holding cost for in-transit goods)
• Shortage Cost: 1€ per unit of lost sales 
  (There are no backorders — when a sale is missed, it’s lost)
• Review Period: You can place one order per week at the end of the week, before the next week starts.
• Lead Time: 2 weeks (orders are made at the end of week X and received at the start of week X+3 – so they are available for sales on week X+3)

⏱️ How the Simulation Works

All participants start from the same initial conditions — same inventory and in-transit orders. All participants will play through the exact same sales sequence that is revealed step by step, at the same point in time for all participants.

Participants submit one order per week for six consecutive weeks (Rounds 1–6).
Due to the 2-week lead time, the simulation will continue for another two weeks, as your final order (from Round 6) will only be delivered in Week 8.

If no order is provided from a participant, the last order submission received will be used again. 

At the end of each round, participants will receive:

• Updated weekly sales data
• Their updated inventory state (starting and ending inventory position, status of in-transit orders)