Dual sourcing and smoothing under non-stationary demand time series: Re-shoring with speedfactories

Abstract

We investigate the emerging trend of near-shoring a small part of the global production to local SpeedFactories. The short lead time of the responsive SpeedFactory reduces the risk of making large volumes in advance, yet it does not involve a complete re-shoring of demand. Using a break-even analysis we investigate the lead time, demand, and cost characteristics that make dual sourcing with a SpeedFactory desirable compared to complete off-shoring. We propose order rules that extend the celebrated inventory optimal order-up-to replenishment policy to settings where capacity costs exist and demonstrate their excellent performance. We highlight the significant impact of autocorrelated and non-stationary demand series, which are prevalent in practice yet challenging to analyze, on the economic benefit of re-shoring. Methodologically, we adopt Z-transforms and present exact analyses of several discrete-time linear production-inventory models.