Trabajo publicado como artículo en Operations Research Letters 33(3): 285-288 (2005).-- http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.orl.2004.06.005
We study the location-inventory model as introduced by Teo et al. (2001) to analyze the impact of consolidation of distribution centers on facility and inventory costs. We extend their result on profitability of consolidation. We associate a cooperative game with each location-inventory situation and prove that this game has a non-empty core for identical and independent demand processes. This illustrates that consolidation does not only lower joint costs (which was shown by Teo et al. (2001)), but it allows for a stable division of the minimal costs as well.
F. Klijn’s research is supported by a Ramón y Cajal contract of the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología. His work is also partially supported by Research Grant BEC2002-02130 from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología and by the
Barcelona Economics Program of CREA.