Sliding Mode Inventory Control with a Pregenerated Reference Trajectory Profile

This study tackles the problem of discrete time sliding mode control design for inventory management systems and proposes a new concept of demand structure and control. The paper considers a single product multi supplier inventory system. It is assumed that the demand divides into two sections: the unknown but bounded random demand and an a priori known contractual component. Therefore, it is proposed to firstly take into account the contractual demand only and generate the desired trajectory profile. In other words, the strategy aims to shape the chain of supplies according to the a priori known demand term. Next, the obtained trajectory profile is applied as a reference in the sliding mode control scheme, where an additional compensation of the random sales is introduced. This concept guarantees satisfaction of both contractual and random demand within their bound at any time instant. Moreover, the proposed strategy greatly simplifies the control design process.