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Inventory Control with Machine Learning Approach: A Bibliometric Analysis

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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-16-5640-8_21

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 Inventory Control With Machine Learning
Approach: A Bibliometric Analysis

Sudimanto, Ford Lumban Gaol, Harco Leslie Hendric Spits Warnars,

and Benfano Soewito

Computer Science Department, BINUS Graduate Program

Doctor of Computer Science, Bina Nusantara University
Jl. K. H. Syahdan No. 9, Kemanggisan, Palmerah,
Jakarta 11480, Indonesia
{sudimanto, spits.hendric}@binus.ac.id,
{fgaol; bsoewito}@binus.edu

Abstract. The selection from this survey report is to use several keywords as
a search on Scopus database. Some of the keywords used in this analysis are
utilizes the novelty of research on the inventory control and machine learning
approach. The bibliometric analysis takes some aspects of the analysis,
namely: the number of annual publications in the journal (book chapter,
conference are excluded), the most journal in publication, collaboration
between authors, and network analysis between keywords. Based on citation,
machine learning approach is generally used to predict, classify inventory,
sales, and production scheduling. Many approaches from machine learning
to inventory control are explored, especially in the field of computer science
like to answer the challenges in the era of industry 4.0 and Internet of Things
(IoT).
Keywords: Bibliometric analysis, Computer Science, Inventory control,
Machine learning, VosViewer

1 Introduction

The inventory system is a system that regulates the inventory of goods and is related
to activities such as inspection, supply of raw materials, semi-finished goods and
finished goods [1]. The inventory system can also be said to be a system of manag-
ing inventory data related to logistics activities. The purpose of storing goods is
very dependent on the scale of the company. For example, for a small shop, the
goods stored will be used for resale [2]. Stock control or known as inventory control
is used to see how much inventory is available and is used as a process flow for the
entry and exit of a product. There are four main types of stock: (1) stock of raw
materials, (2) stock for semi-finished goods, (3) stock of finished goods, and (4)
used up stock. Stock control can be done manually or by using computer software.
A computerized stock control system is not much different from a manual stock
control system, it's just that computerization is more flexible and stock data can be
retrieved easily [3].
With important data such as inventory, the number of items available, the num-
ber of items to be ordered and the costs that will be incurred when ordering goods,
entrepreneurs can easily make a decision about how many items to order and how
much the costs will be paid [1].
According to Praveen K B, Pradyumna Kumar, Prateek J, Pragathi G and Prof.
Madhuri J in a journal with the title “Inventory Management Using Machine Learn-
ing” write “An inventory management system is a major requirement in dealing with
inventory problems both in large-scale stores and small-scale stores. And the sys-
tem can track inventory levels, place purchase orders and sales orders to perform
predictive analysis as a demand forecast which can help reduce excessive stock and
depleted stock [4]”.
2  

The level of accuracy in predicting inventory is an important factor to reduce

costs. By predicting the goods to be ordered again before the customer orders or
purchases, it can have an impact on reducing the lead time and efficiency of the
storage area [5].
Here, machine learning technique is used to predict all changes related to inven-
tory, whether in the form of sales, production, or providing information on reorder-
ing items whose remaining inventory has exceeded the minimum limit [6]. Like-
wise [7] using Machine learning algorithms to predict sales for optimization of
inventory for e-commerce on the Enterprise Resource Planning system.
According to the journal written by Behnam Fahimnia, Joseph Sarkis, Hoda Da-
varzani, in the journal "Green Supply Chain Management: A review and biblio-
metric analysis" that this bibliometric analysis can identify and classify research
topics that will be analyzed in these field of research based on the characteristics of
the author [8].

2 Methodology

This analysis uses several keywords to search for research articles published in
international articles. Data publications were taken from the Scopus database using
the title, abstract and keyword. Data publications are collected and stored for
defined search by export to a file with *.ris, and *.txt extensions. The data obtained
from these keywords is data from a mixture of various types of publications such as
book chapters, edited book, article, monograph, proceeding and preprint. Searching
for publication data using these keywords also consists of several categories of
research fields such as Information and Computing Sciences, Economics,
Mathematical Sciences, and other research fields. Visualization using VOSviewer
used in this bibliometric analysis focuses on the relationship between authors, as
well as the relationship based on keywords.

3 Result and Discussion

3.1 Data Collection

In this analysis, several words are used as keywords to collect data such as
inventory, inventory control, machine learning. From these keywords, several
keywords can be put together, such as the word inventory, inventory control, so that
the keyword used for the word inventory is inventory control. So the search will be
arranged based on keywords, it will become (1) Inventory Control, (2) Machine
Learning, (3) Inventory Control AND Machine Learning.
The results of the search on the Scopus database resulted in 113,479 articles
stored in the form of "journals" (book chapters, conference abstracts, book reviews
are excluded). The details of the search results based on the keywords which is
shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Result from searching by Keywords
Keywords Number of Papers
“Inventory Control” 9,426
“Machine Learning” 103,811
“Inventory Control” AND “Machine Learning” 242
Total of papers founded 113,479
 3 

After combining the two keywords and removing the duplication, there are 242 pub-
lications in the number of articles that have this keywords. Table 2 shows the num-
ber of publications carried out from 2000-2020 so that the publication data with that
range were 218 publications. Fig.1 is a graph which shows the increase in the num-
ber of publications carried out each year.

Table 2. Number of Publications by year

Publication Year Number of Publications
2000 1
2001 1
2002 2
2003 2
2004 2
2005 5
2006 3
2007 2
2008 7
2009 7
2010 2
2011 6
2012 6
2013 6
2014 8
2015 12
2016 13
2017 17
2018 28
2019 36
2020 52

Number Publications by Years
60 52
Number of Publications

36
40 28
13 17
20 7 7 8 12
1 1 2 2 2 5 3 2 2 6 6 6
0
2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020
Year

Fig 1. The number of annual publications from 2000 to 2020

4  

From 218 publications there are several authors who have published in several jour-
nal publishers and table 3 shows 15 journals that had the highest number of publi-
cations from 2000 to 2020. The Computers & Industrial Engineering journal had
the most contributions for 20 years with topics around Inventory Control and Ma-
chine learning, after that, topics for inventory control and machine learning are often
found in expert systems journals with applications.

Table 3. The journal has the most publications in the Inventory Control
and Machine learning area
Journal Name No. of Publications
Computers & Industrial Engineering 22
Expert Systems with Applications 18
European Journal Of Operation Research 15
IFAC-PapersOnLine 13
International Journal of Production Economics 11
Decision Support Systems 9
Computers & Operations Research 8
Applied Soft Computing 5
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 5
Journal of Manufacturing Systems 5
Procedia Manufacturing 5
Journal Of Cleaner Production 4
Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and
Transportation Review 4
Computers In Industry 3
International Journal of Forecasting 3

3.2 Bibliometric mapping based on keywords

Based on the search results conducted from the Scopus database using "inventory
control" and "machine learning" keywords there are 243 articles. Of these 243
articles that have been filtered so that there are no duplications, there are 242
articles. The data is exported to a file with the extension *. RIS. This bibliometric
analysis uses an application VOSviewer, to obtain various forms of analysis. Fig 2
shows the collaboration between the authors of the article, and the time of
publication in different years. The results obtained using VOSviewer, there are 19
groupings based on collaboration between authors. Collaboration between authors
is linked with other authors, while non-collaborating authors will be stand alone.
Visualization of collaboration between authors as shown in Fig 2 is selected with
a minimum threshold of two authors and has a high relationship between authors
where the assessment of the visualization is the average number of publications per
year. The relationship between keywords can be visualized as shown in Fig 3. The
relationship between the visualized keywords can be grouped into 9 groups. The
relationship between keywords also shows that in 2020, research on inventory
control will begin to enter era the industrial 4.0 besides that it will also begin to
 5 

expand towards the Internet of Things.

Fig 2. Collaboration visualization between Authors

Fig 3. Visualization the network between keyword

In Table 4, the 15 most cited articles in this analysis were exemined. Table 4 shows
that the use of the keywords inventory control and machine learning is generally
used for production scheduling, decision maker, estimating inventory the which is
mostly used in supply chain management.
6  

Table 4. Most Cited Articles

No Title Author Publication Number
Year of Cita-
tion

1 Executing production - Aytug, Haldun 2005 480

schedules in the face of - Lawley, Mark
uncertainties: A review A
- McKay,
and some future
Kenneth
directions [9] - Mohan,
Shantha
- Uzsoy, Reha
2 Recent advances in - Gabrel, 2014 397
robust optimization: An Virginie
overview [10] - Murat, Cécile
- Thiele,
Aurélie
3 The use of artificial - Lisboa, Paulo 2006 306
neural networks in J
decision support in - Taktak,
Azzam F G
cancer: A systematic
review [11]

4 Simulation for - Negahban, 2014 276

manufacturing system Ashkan
design and operation: - Smith, Jeffrey
S
Literature review and
analysis [12]

5 The evolution and future - Esmaeilian, 2016 252

of manufacturing: A Behzad
review [13] - Behdad, Sara
- Wang, Ben

6 Industry 4.0 - Frank, 2019 206

technologies: Alejandro
Implementation patterns Germán
- Dalenogare,
in manufacturing
Lucas Santos
companies [14] - Ayala, Néstor
Fabián
7 Classifying inventory - Partovi, 2002 189
using an artificial neural Fariborz Y
network approach [15] - Anandarajan,
Murugan
8 Dynamic pricing and den Boer, Ar- 2015 150
learning: Historical noud V
origins, current
 7 

research, and new

directions [16]

9 Application of - Wang, Yi-Chi 2005 106

reinforcement learning - Usher, John M
for agent-based
production scheduling
[17]

10 Sales forecasts in Thomassey, 2010 100

clothing industry: The Sébastien
key success factor of the
supply chain
management [18]

11 Big data analytics in - Nguyen, 2018 99

supply chain Truong
management: A state- - ZHOU, Li
- Spiegler,
of-the-art literature
Virginia
review [19] - Ieromonachou,
Petros
- Lin, Yong
12 Supply chain - Syntetos, Aris 2016 94
forecasting: Theory, A
practice, their gap and - Babai, Zied
- Boylan, John
the future [20]
E
- Kolassa,
Stephan
- Nikolopoulos,
Konstantinos
13 A review of - Bazan, Ehab 2016 80
mathematical inventory - Jaber,
models for reverse Mohamad Y
- Zanoni,
logistics and the future
Simone
of its modeling: An
environmental
perspective [21]

14 Application of a Fuzzy Rodger, James 2014 38

Feasibility Bayesian A.
Probabilistic Estimation
of supply chain
backorder aging,
unfilled backorders, and
customer wait time
using stochastic
8  

simulation with Markov

blankets [22]

15 Economic production - Liao, Gwo- 2011 36

quantity model for Liang
randomly failing - Sheu, Shey-
Huei
production process with
minimal repair and
imperfect maintenance
[23]

4 Conclusion

Based on the results of the analysis, research with keyword inventory control and
machine learning can be more explored. The results of the publications used are 20
years apart and it can be seen that during that period of research on inventory control
and machine learning is 243 publications from all research fields. Depending on the
results of the highest number of citations, it can be seen that the machine learning
approach used in general is for predicting, classifying, and scheduling, which not
only applies to inventory control, but it is used for production, supply chain, or sales.
From the overall visualization it can be said that the application of machine
learning to inventory system is still a lot can be explored, especially in the computer
science field, and can be used to deal the challenges that existed in the era of the
industrial 4.0.

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