This paper examines static and dynamic policies for replenishing and allocating inventories amongst N retailers located along a fixed delivery route. Each retailer faces independent, normally-distributed period demand and incurs a proportional holding or backorder cost on end-of-period...

The authors are indebted to Professor Andrew Szendrovits of McMaster University for pointing out that [Szendrovits, A. Z. A comment on "Optimal and system myopic policies for production/inventory assembly systems". Management Science, this issue.] the definition of echelon holding cost in...

In the past few years, increasing numbers of automatic warehousing systems using computer-controlled stacker cranes have been installed. Our research concerns the scientific scheduling and design of these systems. There are three elements to scheduling: the assignment of multiple items to the...

In this paper optimal and near optimal policies are proposed for multi-echelon production/inventory assembly systems under continuous review with constant demand over an infinite planning horizon. Costs at each stage consist of a fixed charge per order or production setup plus a linear holding...

Rosenblatt and Kaspi (Rosenblatt, M. J., M. Kaspi. 1985. A dynamic programming algorithm for joint replenishment under general order cost functions. Management Sci. 31 (March) 369-373.) proposed a dynamic programming algorithm for determining joint ordering policies for a class of items with...

This paper constructs and analyzes a multi-location inventory model to examine the value of warehouse risk-pooling in high service-level systems. Specifically, risk-pooling over the outside-supplier leadtime is examined. Two alternative systems of N identical retailers are formulated. In System...

This paper extends work previously reported on storage assignment rules for automatic warehousing systems to include interleaving; that is, the sequencing of storage and retrieve requests. Using both continuous analytical models and discrete evaluation procedures, this paper compares the...

In this paper we examine optimal and near-optimal continuous review policies for a deterministic arborescent inventory system: Known and constant outside demand must be met without backlogging or lost sales at minimum average system cost per unit time. Costs are of two types: A fixed order cost...

This paper examines the system fill-rate of a one-warehouse N-identical retailer distribution system as a function of warehouse and retailer safety stock. Using the approximation model of Deuermeyer and Schwarz (Deuermeyer, B. L., L. B. Schwarz. 1981. A model for the analysis of system service...

For a system of N-identical-retailers we construct a model for determining warehouse inventory-allocation policies which minimize system lost sales per retailer between system replenishments. An allocation policy is specified by: (a) the number of withdrawals from warehouse stock; (b) the...