用大模型自动设计库存策略,成本降低超30%。
Automated Design of Inventory Policy with Large Language Models: An Exploratory Study

- 让大模型生成带参数的库存策略,再用求解器优化参数。
- 10轮迭代后平均降本30%,远超仅靠大模型的版本。
- 发现的新策略可解释且能跨场景复用,适合供应链优化者。
企业制定库存决策时可利用运营数据、优化工具和大语言模型(LLMs)。通常,数据描述运营环境,优化在预设策略类别中选择参数,而LLMs辅助编程与决策分析。本文构建一个整合框架,将三者结合以实现库存策略的自动化设计。给定需求数据,该框架通过迭代方式使用LLM生成参数化策略类别,并由外部求解器优化每类中的参数。在30个缺货库存实例上,相对于优化后的基础库存基准,平均成本降幅从第一轮的17.5%提升至第十轮的30.0%。参数优化是性能关键:仅使用LLM的变体表现显著更差;而优化反馈能提升策略质量、加速搜索,并引导LLM寻找更优策略类别,而非仅优化固定类别内的参数。最优发现策略具有可解释性,融合了截断订单、加权或折扣的在途库存、以及基于阈值的补货逻辑等经典控制模式。搜索过程生成了此前未被研究过的新型策略函数形式,这些形式并非预先设定,而是由搜索过程涌现。此外,在对三个发现策略类别重新优化参数后,其在10,064个新实例上的平均成本降低达21.75%至22.60%。总体表明,数据驱动的参数优化可引导基于大模型的策略空间搜索,识别出高性能、可解释且具备迁移能力的决策规则。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Firms making inventory decisions have access to operational data, optimization tools, and large language models (LLMs). Typically, data characterize the operating environment, optimization selects parameters within a prespecified inventory policy class, and LLMs support coding and decision analysis. We develop an integrated framework that combines these resources to automate inventory policy design. Given demand data, the framework iteratively uses an LLM to generate parameterized policy classes and an external solver to optimize its parameters within each class. Across 30 lost-sales inventory instances, the mean cost reduction relative to optimized base-stock benchmarks increases from 17.5% after one generation to 30.0% after ten generations. Parameter optimization is central to this performance: an LLM-only variant performs substantially worse, whereas optimization-guided feedback improves policy quality, accelerates search, and directs the LLM toward better policy classes rather than merely better parameter values within a fixed class. The strongest discovered policies are also interpretable: they combine recognizable inventory-control motifs, including capped orders, discounted or weighted pipeline inventory, and threshold-based replenishment logic. The search thereby produces new policy-class functional forms that, to our knowledge, have not previously been studied in the lost-sales inventory literature. These functional forms are not specified ex ante but emerge from the search process. Moreover, after their parameters are re-optimized, three discovered policy classes achieve average cost reductions of 21.75% to 22.60% across 10,064 new inventory instances. Overall, the results show that data-driven parameter optimization can guide LLM-based search over a broad space of inventory policy classes and identify high-performing, interpretable, and transferable decision rules.
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