The combinatorics of S, M, L, XL - The best fitting delivery of T-shirts

Abstract

We consider the problem of approximating the branch and size dependent demand of a fashion discounter with many branches by a distributing process being based on the branch delivery restricted to integral multiples of lots from a small set of available lot-types. We propose a formalized model which arises from a practical cooperation with an industry partner. Besides an integer linear programming formulation we provide an appropriate primal heuristic for this problem.