Exploiting Random Lead Times for Significant Inventory Cost Savings
研究显示，在特定条件下，通过巧妙利用前置时间的随机性，新设计的库存策略能比传统基础库存策略大幅降低成本，对供应链管理者有重要参考价值。
Taking Advantage of the Lead Time Randomness in Supply Chains Randomness in lead times is a major—and increasingly important—issue of inventory management, as a variety of risk factors motivate companies to diversify their supply sources and rely on distributed networks of suppliers. In “Exploiting Random Lead Times for Significant Inventory Cost Savings,” A. Stolyar and Q. Wang show that, surprisingly, instead of being a damaging factor to supply chain performance, randomness may be harnessed for potentially very substantial reductions of inventory costs. Specifically, the theoretical analysis and simulation results in the paper demonstrate that, under certain conditions, appropriately designed novel policies can significantly outperform the conventional base stock policies.