We consider a production planning problem in an N-machine flowshop subject to breakdown and repair of machines and to non-negativity constraints on work-in process. The machine capacities and demand processes are assumed to be finite-state Markov chains. The problem is to choose the rates of...

This paper considers a production-inventory problem in which the manufacturer participates in an energy buy-back program, which offers him probabilistic opportunities with rewards for not using electricity. That is, the manufacturer will get paid for stopping production to save on electricity....

This paper is concerned with explicit optimal control for a deterministic manufacturing system consisting of a single reliable machine and producing two part types studied by Connolly (Master Thesis, Operations Research Center, MIT, Cmbridge, 1992) and Gershwin (Manufacturing Systems...

We consider two specially structured assemble-to-order (ATO) systems -- the N- and W-systems -- under continuous review, stochastic demand, and non-identical component replenishment leadtimes. Using a hybrid approach that combines sample-path analysis, linear programming, and the tower property...

Supply chain coordination and associated contracts have been active research topics in supply chain management. Yet, little has been done in addressing the robustness of the design, evaluation, and implementation of such contracts. We develop a consistency framework for supply chain contracts...

Linear optimal control problems with state inequality constraints is an important class of large systems. This paper shows that a generalized programming formulation of these problems does not result in a decomposition over time or a maximum principle as it does for problems without the state...