OR Practice—Determining Lot Sizes and Resource Requirements: A Review

Harish C. Bahl, Larry P. Ritzman and Jatinder N. D. Gupta
Additional contact information
Harish C. Bahl: State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York
Larry P. Ritzman: Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Jatinder N. D. Gupta: Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana

Operations Research, 1987, vol. 35, issue 3, 329-345

Abstract: Inventory planning can become extremely complicated in situations with nontrivial setup times and/or costs. The pervasiveness of this type of problem in actual practice, combined with its computational complexity, has long attracted researchers' attention. Although the most general model formulations still defy optimization when applied to realistically sized problems, many recent contributions are both innovative and promising. This article concentrates on the lot-sizing and capacity dimensions of production planning. We review selected contributions in four major categories, drawing from both practitioner- and research-based literature. We assess the strengths and weaknesses of these contributions, and suggest promising research avenues. We conclude that capacity limitations, as well as other realities of plant environments, such as scrap, demand uncertainties or inaccurate data, are the Achilles heel of lot-sizing research. Directing attention to these complex environments is a challenge that offers great rewards for actual implementation.

Keywords: 331 lot sizing and capacity policies; 366 research on more complex environments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1987
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/opre.35.3.329 (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:oropre:v:35:y:1987:i:3:p:329-345

Access Statistics for this article

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