An acquisition policy for a single item multi-supplier system with real-world constraints

This paper proposes an exact acquisition policy for solving the single-item multi-supplier problem with real-world constraints. Compared with the model of Rosenblatt et al. [Note. An acquisition policy for a single item multi-supplier system, Manage. Sci. 44 (1998) S96-S100], the proposed method has contributions in that the global optimal solutions can be obtained to indicate the best acquisition policy, and real-world constraints can easily be added as appropriate for real-world situations. In addition, the benefits of price-quantity discount (PQD) under conditions of the single item muti-supplier system are also considered in the paper.