This paper develops an order-up-to S inventory model that is designed to handle multiple items, resource constraints, lags in delivery, and lost sales without sacrificing computational simplicity. Mild conditions are shown to ensure that the expected average holding cost and the expected average...

The erosion of service quality throughout the economy is a frequent concern in the popular press. The American Customer Satisfaction Index for services fell in 2000 to 69.4%, down 5 percentage points from 1994. We hypothesize that the characteristics of services---inseparability, intangibility,...