Transforming eCommerce Product Segmentation with Machine Learning

Inventory management is one of the key elements of supply chain management for any organization to manage costs versus service level tradeoffs. Product segmentation for inventory is therefore a key lever for inventory management. Traditionally, this segmentation is done using only a single criterion...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Arora, Ankita, Bosch, Alejandro Souza
Format: Thesis
Language:en_US
Published: 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/142940
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author Arora, Ankita
Bosch, Alejandro Souza
author_facet Arora, Ankita
Bosch, Alejandro Souza
author_sort Arora, Ankita
collection MIT
description Inventory management is one of the key elements of supply chain management for any organization to manage costs versus service level tradeoffs. Product segmentation for inventory is therefore a key lever for inventory management. Traditionally, this segmentation is done using only a single criterion. This paper presents a framework that uses a hybrid approach combining a multi-criteria decision-making technique, analytical hierarchy process, and machine learning algorithms, support vector machines and artificial neural networks, to improve product segmentation using multiple criteria as opposed to single criteria. Our results show an addition of 20-30% SKUs that should be in ‘A’ class that wouldn’t have been classified as ‘A’ products using a univariable approach. The machine learning models show an accuracy of 92.3% for linear SVM and of 86.5% for ANN with 8 nodes, with linear SVM outperforming ANN. Hence, our work demonstrates that using a hybrid model with AHP and SVM results in a flexible and customizable segmentation model that is highly beneficial for any rapidly growing company with a heterogenous product portfolio and can serve to increase the service level as well as decrease inventory costs for companies.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1429402022-06-11T03:32:05Z Transforming eCommerce Product Segmentation with Machine Learning Arora, Ankita Bosch, Alejandro Souza Inventory Management Machine Learning Retail Operations Inventory management is one of the key elements of supply chain management for any organization to manage costs versus service level tradeoffs. Product segmentation for inventory is therefore a key lever for inventory management. Traditionally, this segmentation is done using only a single criterion. This paper presents a framework that uses a hybrid approach combining a multi-criteria decision-making technique, analytical hierarchy process, and machine learning algorithms, support vector machines and artificial neural networks, to improve product segmentation using multiple criteria as opposed to single criteria. Our results show an addition of 20-30% SKUs that should be in ‘A’ class that wouldn’t have been classified as ‘A’ products using a univariable approach. The machine learning models show an accuracy of 92.3% for linear SVM and of 86.5% for ANN with 8 nodes, with linear SVM outperforming ANN. Hence, our work demonstrates that using a hybrid model with AHP and SVM results in a flexible and customizable segmentation model that is highly beneficial for any rapidly growing company with a heterogenous product portfolio and can serve to increase the service level as well as decrease inventory costs for companies. 2022-06-10T16:38:14Z 2022-06-10T16:38:14Z 2022-06-10 Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/142940 en_US CC0 1.0 Universal http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ application/pdf
spellingShingle Inventory Management
Machine Learning
Retail Operations
Arora, Ankita
Bosch, Alejandro Souza
Transforming eCommerce Product Segmentation with Machine Learning
title Transforming eCommerce Product Segmentation with Machine Learning
title_full Transforming eCommerce Product Segmentation with Machine Learning
title_fullStr Transforming eCommerce Product Segmentation with Machine Learning
title_full_unstemmed Transforming eCommerce Product Segmentation with Machine Learning
title_short Transforming eCommerce Product Segmentation with Machine Learning
title_sort transforming ecommerce product segmentation with machine learning
topic Inventory Management
Machine Learning
Retail Operations
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/142940
work_keys_str_mv AT aroraankita transformingecommerceproductsegmentationwithmachinelearning
AT boschalejandrosouza transformingecommerceproductsegmentationwithmachinelearning