We investigate the problem of determining optimal planned leadtimes in serial production systems in which the actual procurement and processing times may be stochastic. The objective is to minimize the sum of inventory holding costs and job tardiness costs given a customer specified due-date. We...

This paper deals with mixed-model line balancing; i.e., the problem of combining line balancing with lot sizing in a multi-product environment. Recent developments in the area of multi-echelon production/inventory systems are applied, and algorithms are developed which determine the number of...

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...

A warehouse supplies N retailers. Constant external demand occurs at each retailer, and shortages are not allowed. There are linear holding costs and fixed costs for ordering at the warehouse and at each retailer. The goal is to minimize the long-run average cost over an infinite time horizon....

This paper considers a multi-stage, serial inventory system. The demand for the end item is stochastic and stationary. The relevant costs include a fixed ordering cost and an echelon inventory holding cost for each stage, and a backordering cost for the end item. The objective is to find a...

We examine the effects of component commonality on optimal safety stock levels in a two-product, two-level inventory model. The criterion is to minimize system safety stock subject to a service level constraint. Although our model is specialized, its analysis provides insights not available in...

Material Requirements Planning or Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) systems originally were designed for a deterministic environment. Often, however, demand for finished products is uncertain and some type of buffering mechanism is necessary to provide desired levels of service. When the...

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...

In this paper, we focus on a single order cycle of a warehouse, serving N retailers where the only shipments allowed during the cycle are from the warehouse to the retailers. For a simple ship-up-to-S allocation policy, we develop both the exact cost model and a computationally tractable...

This paper presents an approximation model for optimizing reorder points in one-warehouse N-retailer inventory systems subject to highly variable lumpy demand. The motivation for this work stems from close cooperation with a supply chain management software company, Syncron International, and...