Article ID: | iaor1996102 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 41 |
Issue: | 2 |
Start Page Number: | 263 |
End Page Number: | 281 |
Publication Date: | Feb 1995 |
Journal: | Management Science |
Authors: | Glasserman Paul, Tayur Sridhar |
Keywords: | inventory: order policies, simulation: applications |
Effective management of inventories in large-scale production and distribution systems requires methods for bringing model solutions closer to the complexities of real systems. Motivated by this need, the authors develop simulation-based methods for estimating sensitivities of inventory costs with respect to policy parameters. These sensitivity estimates are useful in adjusting optimal parameters predicted by a simplified model to complexities that can be incorporated in a simulation. The authors consider capacitated, multiechelon systems operating under base-stock policies and develop estimators of derivatives with respect to base-stock levels. They show that these estimates converge to the correct value for finite-horizon and infinite-horizon discounted and average cost criteria. The present methods are easy to implement and experiments suggest that they converge quickly. The authors illustrate their use by optimizing base-stock levels for a subsystem of the PC assembly and distribution system of a major computer manufacturer.