Article ID: | iaor19931336 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 40 |
Issue: | 6 |
Start Page Number: | 1107 |
End Page Number: | 1125 |
Publication Date: | Nov 1992 |
Journal: | Operations Research |
Authors: | Caramanis Michael, Liberopoulos George |
Keywords: | programming: dynamic |
Dynamic allocation of stochastic capacity among competing activities in a just in time manufacturing environment is addressed by optimal flow control. Optimal policies are characterized by generally intractable Bellman equations. A near-optimal controller design technique is proposed. It provides an approximate numerical solution to the Bellman equation, a tight lower bound for the optimality gap of tractable, near-optimal controller designs, and a building block for improved, near-optimal controller designs that rely on the decomposition of a multiple part-type problem to smaller (two or three part-type) problems. Computational experience is reported for two and three part-type problems.