Most of the recent studies of heuristic lot-sizing techniques for multi-stage material requirements planning systems have investigated the problem in the context of a single stage. In this paper, the multi-stage problem is first modeled analytically to indicate the potential errors inherent in...

Planning horizons are developed for the dynamic economic lot site model with backlogging when the marginal production cost is either constant or variable. The inventory holding and backlogging cost functions are assumed to be concave. An efficient forward algorithm generalizes the...

Manufacturers and their distributors must cope with an increased flow of returned products from their customers. The value of commercial product returns, which we define as products returned for any reason within 90 days of sale, now exceeds $100 billion annually in the United States. Although...

This research examines the effectiveness of alternative strategies for dealing with the problem of order instability, or nervousness, which occurs in Material Requirements Planning systems. Nervousness can be particularly disruptive in multi-level production processes where a change in order...

We consider the problem of controlling a single-server queue by turning the server on and off. In addition to a Poisson arrival process and general service-time distribution, provisions for balking and reneging are included in the models, yielding a variety of applications. Stationary optimal...