Computer-Aided Inventory Management Using Time-Temperature Indicators

Abstract

The commonly used inventory management policies, based on elapsed storage time, do not account for nonuniform deterioration within a perishable inventory. A quality-based issue criterion was postulated as an improvement for managing food inventories. Using kinetic theory, a mathematical model was derived to predict changes in food quality from the response of a full-history time-temperature indicator. The mathematical model was tested by comparing the actual changes in firmness of mature green tomatos with predicted results. The quality based inventory policy, namely, the shortest-remaining-shelf-life (SRSL) issue policy, was tested for a commercial warehouse operation and found to outperform traditional policies in terms of minimizing variations in quality attributes of issued products.