Tradeoffs between base stock levels, numbers of kanbans, and planned supply lead times in production/inventory systems with advance demand information

Abstract

We numerically investigate tradeoffs between near-optimal base stock levels, numbers of kanbans, and planned supply lead times in base stock policies and hybrid base stock/kanban policies with advance demand information used for the control of multi-stage production/inventory systems. We report simulation-based computational experience regarding such tradeoffs and the managerial insights behind them for single-stage and two-stage production/inventory systems. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.