This paper illustrates how individual forecasts and forecasting techniques may be evaluated by the use of established decision theory. Given the probability distribution of the forecast error, we first find the optimal strategy for a decision process, i.e., how to make the most efficient use of...

The definition of the cost of resources devoted to inventories which is inherent in the economic-lot-size procedure implies financial conditions which may not exist. This would lead to infeasibility and/or to a misstatement of carrying costs. If carrying costs are incorrectly stated, then in...

We show in this reply that the response by Charnes and Cooper to our paper is aimed at an issue that is only tangential to our analysis and does not affect our conclusions.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of errors in the sales forecast on inventory changes and production rates. This is done by computing the ratio of the standard deviation of inventory change or production rate to the standard deviation of sales rate. By use of this ratio the...

Some important conceptual problems concerning the application of chance constrained programming (CCP) to risky practical decision problems are discussed by comparing CCP to stochastic programming with recourse (SPR). We expand on Garstka's distinction between mathematical equivalence and...