Supply management in assembly systems : the basic problem
Abstract
We consider the case when n components are needed to assemble a given product. Components are provided by suppliers and the period between the order time and the time a component is available (i.e. the yield from supplier) is the value taken by a random variable with a known distribution. The due date for the assembled product is also known. The cost to be taken into account are the inventory cost of the components and the backlogging cost of the assembled product. We propose an iterative algorithm which leads to the optimal order instants of the components.