Despite advances in retail point-of-sale (POS) data sharing, retailers’ suppliers struggle to effectively use POS data to improve their fulfillment planning processes. The challenge lies in predicting retailer orders. We present evidence that retail echelon inventory processes translate into a...

Cross-docking can reduce inventory in a retail supply chain but in certain situations it can result in more inventory being required in the stores to achieve the same customer service levels. In this paper we develop models to predict the changes in the retailer's system-wide inventory levels as...