This paper extends recent results of Baker et al. (Baker, K. R., M. J. Magazine, H. L. W. Nuttle. 1986. The effect of commonality on safety stocks in a simple inventory model. Management Sci. 32 982--988.) in understanding the impact of component commonality on stocking levels under service...

The coordinated multi-item inventory problem refers to the problem of managing inventories where there is a joint fixed cost for replenishing plus an item-by-item fixed cost for each item included in the replenishment order. Given that the optimal solution is likely to be too complex, attention...

We formulate a stochastic-demand version of the single-stage lot-sizing problem with time-varying demand, incorporating a service-level constraint on the probability of a stockout. Three strategies are studied. The "static uncertainty" strategy, in which lot-sizing decisions for every period...

In this paper we consider a single product multi-period inventory problem for which the penalty cost consists of two parts, a lump-sum portion which is independent of the size of the shortage and a portion which is linear in the size of the shortage. We show that for all nonincreasing demand...

This paper examines a two-level distribution system consisting of a central warehouse (CW) supplying several branch warehouses (BW's), which, in turn, supply normally-distributed customer demands in a periodic-review environment. The CW replenishes system inventory using a base-stock...

The multilocation inventory problem can be thought of naturally as an extension of the single location "newsboy" problem to multiple locations with transshipment possible between locations. Previous work has established the form of optimal policies; however, computational results have been...

Classical Economic Manufacturing Quantity (EMQ) models have usually ignored the possibility of process deterioration and the existence of defective items in the production lot. Moreover, the use of machine inspection for maintenance and restoration purposes has not been considered. On the other...

We argue that standard approximations for two often-used inventory service-level measures may perform poorly in many situations. Then we confirm the long-standing conjecture that the (relatively) exact formulas for these quantities are convex functions of the relevant control variables. Both...

In multi-echelon repairable inventory systems with high set-up cost for order and/or high demand rates, the use of batch ordering may be more cost-effective than the common (S - 1, S) ordering policy. This paper addresses the issue of determining the optimal order batch size and stocking levels...

It has been observed that firms alter year-end inventory policies in response to accounting tax incentives. This study proposes a stochastic ordering policy model which quantifies these effects. An innovative feature is its use of two decision variables: an initial order-up-to-level at the...