This paper examines the impact of group purchasing organizations (GPOs) on healthcare-product supply chains. The supply chain we study consists of a profit-maximizing manufacturer with a quantity-discount schedule that is nonincreasing in quantity and ensures nondecreasing revenue, a...

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...

We consider the problem of a newsvendor that is served by multiple suppliers, where any given supplier is defined to be either perfectly reliable or unreliable. By perfectly reliable we mean a supplier that delivers an amount identically equal to the amount desired, as is the case in the most...

This paper examines the interactions between routing and inventory-management decisions in a two-level supply chain consisting of a cross-docking warehouse and N retailers. Retailer demand is normally distributed and independent across retailers and over time. Travel times are fixed between...

The publication of Volume 1, Number 1 of M&SOM marks the end of a process that began more than three years ago: a process whose goal was to create the premier journal in operations management. I will leave it to you, the reader of 1:1, to decide whether or not we have been successful "right out...