Model and algorithm of materials inventory based on substitution rate

This paper studied materials inventory problem based on substitution rate, while the inventory capacity was limited and the demand was unknown, and the objective was to maximize the effectiveness brought by the inventory. Firstly, this paper analyzed the phenomenon of substitution and defined substitute rate. Then, the model of materials inventory was established, and the differences among this model, the model of knapsack problem and the model of assignment problem were discussed. For a special case of this problem, we proposed a substitute rate greedy algorithm and analyzed its performance. At last, an example shows the application of the substitute rate greedy algorithm.