In most multi-item inventory systems, the ordering costs consist of a major cost and a minor cost for each item included. Applying for every individual item a cyclic inventory policy, where the cycle length is a multiple of some basic cycle time, reduces the major ordering costs. An efficient...

In this paper we discuss a general framework for single component replacement models. This framework is based on the regenerative structure of these models and by using results from renewal theory a unified presentation of the discounted and average finite and infinite horizon cost models is...

A railway system needs a substantial amount of maintenance. To prevent unexpected breakdowns as much as possible, preventive maintenance is required. In this paper we discuss the Preventive Maintenance Scheduling Problem (PMSP), where (short) routine activities and (long) unique projects have to...

In this article we give an overview of the relation between planning of maintenance and production. On the one hand we consider production planning and scheduling models in which failures and maintenance aspects are taken into account. Next we discuss the planning of maintenance activities, for...

Ports provide jetty facilities for ships to load and unload their cargo. Jetty capacity is costly and therefore limited, causing delays for arriving ships. However, ship delays are also costly, so terminal operators attempt to minimize their number and duration. Here, simulation has proved to be...

In this article we give an overview of the literature on multi-component maintenance optimization. We focus on work appearing since the 1991 survey "A survey of maintenance models for multi-unit systems" by Cho and Parlar. This paper builds forth on the review article by Dekker et al. (1996),...

In this paper we proposed an efficient algorithm to solve the joint replenishment problem to optimality. We perform a computational study to compare the performance of the proposed algorithm with the best one reported in Viswanathan [6]. The study reveals that for large minor set-up costs and...

In this paper we present new bounds on the basic cycle time for optimal methods to solve the JRP. They are tighter than the ones reported in Viswanathan [7]. We carry out extensive numerical experiments to compare them and to investigate the computational complexity.

In this paper we present a new distribution concept called ‘floating stocks’, which uses intermodal transport to deploy inventories in a supply chain in advance of retailer demand. Supplying part of the demand directly by road compensates the longer transit time of this transport....

In this study we investigate the desired level of recovery under various inventory control policies when the success of recovery is probabilistic. Recovery process is modelled as a single stage operation and recovery effort is represented by the expected time spent for it. The effect of...