Inventory Planning

Companies, like food suppliers or restaurants, struggle with managing inventories over many periods for many stock-keeping units (SKUs). Balancing capacity, demand, profit and risk, becomes combinatorially difficult, and classical methods struggle to do this effectively.

A hybrid quantum-inspired QUBO framework could be used to allocate SKUs over multiple periods. By encoding capacity, demand, profit and risk over time, and exploring very large decision spaces, better stocking patterns across hubs and time periods could be identified.

This could enable more efficient, profit-aware inventory allocation that reduces overstocking, waste, and under-supply, improving sustainability and responsiveness in the food supply chain.