Two Lot-Sizing Algorithms for Minimizing Inventory Cost and Their Software Implementation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is about the algorithm to minimize inventory costs. The manuscript needs a significant revision before further consideration. My comments and suggestions are as follows:

1.      This manuscript failed to present the study debates and failed to discuss the debates. The abstract is incomplete. I suggest that the authors rewrite the abstract to make it more constructive with clear methodology, clear results, and findings. The abstract should have at least one sentence per each: context and background, motivation, hypothesis, methods, results, and conclusions. Novelty is missing in the abstract.

2.      The introduction should include problem context, literature review and the research gap analysis of the previously published research. Research questions and research objectives are missing. Authors are recommended to spend much time revising this section. How did the authors get from the theoretical model to the empirical one? Behind the model, there needs to be a complete and well-thought-out theoretical grounding. This part of the article shouldn’t include any citations or references; rather, it should be structured according to the author’s reasoning. The discussion is short in the text, expand it more. And compare with similar cases and papers. There are theoretical, managerial, and societal implications missing. What is the primary objective of your study in terms of optimal decisions? Provide an author’s contribution table in the Literature review section to show the novelty of this study compared to existing literature. Several citations are missing, fix this.

3.      The authors want to minimize the cost but what are the decision variables, what are the costs for the inventory? What are the main objective cost functions? What methodology is used? What are the assumptions for the inventory model?

4.      What is the data source for the analysis? What are the managerial benefits of this study?

5.      For inventory-related research a sensitivity analysis is required. What are the sensitive parameters for your research?

6.      I can not find any significant contribution in terms of novelty, originality, and methods. Thus, try to provide clear illustrations.

7.      The reference section is also not completed. Try to add recent references in this direction. Please cite the following inventory-related research and include it within the text through some comparison and update your article appropriately.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10845-022-02046-4

Revise English language properly

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Please see the attachement for our response to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In information-2873935, Tsadiras et al. attempted to presented an algorithm for minimizing inventory cost.

W1. Despite their presented algorithm is "an extension of the Wagner-Whitin algorithm", the authors did not descibe the Wagner-Whitin algorithm.

W2. The literature review on "economic order quantity (EOQ) models and the Wagner-Whitin algorithm and all its variants" was quite shallow.

W3. A more exhaustive review is needed.

W4. The authors evaluated the presented algorithm by simply using five scenarios.

W5. More exhaustive evaluation is needed.

W6. There seems to be flaws and redundancies in the main algorithm.

W7. Line 16 of the main algorithm tests if i=j. The corresponding else case in line 21 implies i!=j. If so, is it essential to test i!=j again immediately in line 23?

W8. The authors should proofread their submission. Some reference soures were not found.

W9. The submission is not easy to read.

W1. The authors should proofread their submission. Some reference soures were not found.

W2. The submission is not easy to read.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Please see the attachment for our response to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Inventory optimization is the subject of the paper. The authors formulate an extension of Lot sizing problem that allows work with more input parameters than classical one. To solve the new problem, an extension of the Wagner-Whitin algorithm is developed. A software tool realizing the algorithm is proposed. It allows working with different scenarios.

The presented results and experiments are acceptable.

Notes on article layout:

1)      Please enrich the literature sources with more articles on the topic “Lot sizing problem” from MDPI journals.

2)      It might be a good idea to include the term “Lot sizing problem” in the article title and in the list of  keywords.

3)      Section 3, Please give a formal description of the extension of Lot sizing problem you propose – parameters, equations, objective function.

4)      Section 4, Here, comments and highlighting of the different steps of the proposed algorithm can be given in text form.

No

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Please see the attachment for our response to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Even though it is a revised version, the present form is not suitable for acceptance. The authors avoided several important suggestions like decision-making variables, sensitivity analysis, explaining the proper novelty, etc. The authors must carefully revise the whole manuscript with unique contributions and novelty. An author(s) contributions table is required to show the importance of your study compared to existing literature.  The authors must illustrate all notations and parameters in a single table such that it can be easily understandable. The authors must clarify the data collection methods, just saying that this is real-world data does not indicate that data is from the real world. The authors must provide proper sources, data collection methods, etc.

Minor English editing is required

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In information-2873935R1, Tsadiras et al. attempted to presented a two-lot sizing algorithm for minimizing inventory cost.

S1. The authors addressed Reviewer 2's previous concerns.

Author Response

Thank you sincerely for your valuable suggestions. 

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

The author(s) contribution table is still not in proper format. The authors need to justify this table based on different novel approaches. The authors may cite the following article to gain proper knowledge about the author's contribution table to show the novelty of the current study and compare your study with the following study and include within the manuscript:

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10845-022-02046-4

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf