Computer Sciences Commons^™

Applying Deep Learning To The Ice Cream Vendor Problem: An Extension Of The Newsvendor Problem, Gaffar Solihu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Newsvendor problem is a classical supply chain problem used to develop strategies for inventory optimization. The goal of the newsvendor problem is to predict the optimal order quantity of a product to meet an uncertain demand in the future, given that the demand distribution itself is known. The Ice Cream Vendor Problem extends the classical newsvendor problem to an uncertain demand with unknown distribution, albeit a distribution that is known to depend on exogenous features. The goal is thus to estimate the order quantity that minimizes the total cost when demand does not follow any known statistical distribution. The …