Abstract
This paper is concerned with finding an optimal inventory policy for the integrated replenishment-production batching model of Omar and Smith (2002). Here, a company produces a single finished product which requires a single raw material and the objective is to minimise the total inventory costs over a finite planning horizon. Earlier work in the literature considered models with linear demand rate function of the finished product. This work proposes a general methodology for finding an optimal inventory policy for general demand rate functions. The proposed methodology is adapted from the recent work of Benkherouf and Gilding (2009).
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank three anonymous referees for their valuable comments on an earlier version of the paper.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
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Talal M. Al-Khamis
Talal M. Al-Khamis is a professor at the Department of Statistics and Operations Research (Kuwait University). He is also the vice-dean for student affairs at the Faculty of Science (Kuwait University). He received his PhD in operations research from the Florida Institute of Technology (1989). His research interests are in stochastic modelling simulation and optimisation. He has contributed papers to the Journal of Applied Probability, European Journal of Operational Research, International Journal of Production Economics, Computers and Operations Research, Computers and Industrial Engineering.
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Lakdere Benkherouf
Lakdere Benkherouf is a professor at the Department of Statistics and Operations Research (Kuwait University). He is also the Vice-Dean for Research and Laboratories Affairs at the Faculty of Science (Kuwait University). He received his PhD in statistics from Imperial College (London). His research interests are in stochastic modelling and inventory control. He has contributed papers to the Journal of Applied Probability, Journal of The Royal Statistical Society, Statistics and Probability Letters, Communications in Statistics-Simulation and Computation, Sankhya, Journal of The Operational Research Society, European Journal of Operational Research, Operations Research, Operations Research Letters, International Journal of Production Economics, Computers and Operations Research, Computers and Industrial Engineering, SIAM Journal of Control and Optimization, etc.
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Mohamed Omar
Mohd Omar is a professor and head in the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, University of Malaya, Malaysia. He received his PhD in Operational Research from University of Exeter, United Kingdom. His current research interests include production and inventory control and multi-objective optimisation. He has contributed articles to the European Journal of Operational Research, Computers and Industrial Engineering, International Journal of Production Economics and International Journal of Production Research.