Effects of component commonality in multi-component inventory models

In this paper we present two inventory models with component commonality and exhibit the duality between them. The first model deals with minimizing the total inventory such that an aggregate service level is maintained, whereas the second model maximizes system aggregate service level subjected to some maximum total inventory level. The two three-end-product models have been generalized to a product structure with n components, out of them k common components. We have derived the solution for the optimal inventory stocks of both specific and common components as general formulae of k and n. The impact of increasing the rate of commonality on system performance has also been analyzed.