Define profiles and level of buffersOperations Improvement and Inventory Reduction for an Artisanal Chocolate Business using Aggregate Planning and DDMRP

The COVID-19 pandemic, unleashed at the end of 2019, seriously affected not only the health of thousands of Peruvians but also the economy and production systems. This is reflected in the reduction of the GDP, which during that year suffered a reduction of 11.12%. Regarding the chocolate industry, consumption, production, and importation were growing in previous years, but had a significant decrease during 2020. Due to government sanitary restrictions, many Peruvian businesses were forced to keep their inventory on hand almost all year. Despite the fact that some experts affirm that it is convenient to maintain a greater number of inventories when there is dynamism in the labor market, it is very risky to keep such levels of stocks permanently. In the present investigation, an inventory management improvement model is proposed using the DDMRP and PA techniques, with which the optimal quantities to be produced and kept in inventories will be determined at the different levels of the supply chain. In this way, the impact generated by the Inventory Maintenance Cost (IMC) will be reduced, and the Inventory Turnover Ratio (ITR) will be increased to 3.2. The model will be validated by simulation to verify that the levels are optimal for the system.