The Fifth Column---On Optimum Scheduling, OR Beer Trucks, Second Clarinets, and Carls

Gene Woolsey
Additional contact information
Gene Woolsey: The Colorado School of Mines

Interfaces, 1980, vol. 10, issue 4, 11-15

Abstract: One of the commonest OR/MS areas of attempted applications is the well-beloved wall-to-wall scheduling model. This problem usually appears when some corporate big dog says: “Why is it that our plants/mills/factories can never seem to meet the demand of our market when things are going well, but we have warehouses of the stuff when nobody's buying?” Of course, one of the clever ways to hide excess inventory is to have enough of it en route. I recall with great amusement pointing out to one corporate biggy that he had no reason to be proud of the fact that their company had so few warehouses. As long as they continued to use the Burlington Northern as their storage bins, they were in great shape. Naturally, he had never heard of demurrage and hadn't the foggiest idea of what their rolling warehouses were costing them. It doesn't really matter anyway, they were speedily bought as a tax shelter for another company in the first quarter of 1980; Sic Transit Gloria Demurro .

Keywords: production/scheduling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1980
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.10.4.11 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orinte:v:10:y:1980:i:4:p:11-15

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Interfaces from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().