Dispatching regular and express shipments between a supplier and manufacturer

A dispatching schedule is to be developed for a supplier providing parts to a manufacturer, given the cumulative production at the supplier and the cumulative demand at the manufacturer. This paper develops dispatching strategies that combine regular (e.g. truck or ship) and express (e.g. air) shipments, and compares these strategies as a function of the total inventory in the sysem (i.e. cumulative production minus cumulative demand). In most cases, one of five basic strategies should provide a cost that is close to optimal.