Queueing models of production and healthcare systems

在当今竞争激烈的市场中，能够快速完成客户订单以及提供各种定制产品的公司将具有优势。然而，这些目标给制造商带来了相互矛盾的压力。为了快速完成订单，公司需要携带成品库存-但这带来了持有不适合客户订单的库存项目的风险。为了提供定制产品，公司通常只在客户下订单时才生产产品。这降低了不销售提前生产的产品的风险，但会导致客户交货期更长。出于这个原因，许多公司使用混合方法。他们在客户需求之前生产半成品(按库存生产)，然后在客户订单实现时定制半成品(按订单生产)。这项研究的第一个主要领域涉及加强我们对生产系统的理解，在这些生产系统中，产品是以这种混合方式制造的。重点是探索对这些混合系统使用各种库存控制政策和生产结构。

In today's competitive markets, a company able to fill customer orders quickly, as well offer a variety of custom products will have an advantage. However, these goals place conflicting pressures on manufacturers. To fill orders quickly requires firms to carry finished goods inventory - but this carries a risk of holding in inventory items not suitable for customer orders. To provide custom products, firms typically produce items only when the customer places an order. This reduces the risk of not selling items made ahead of time, but causes longer customer lead times. For this reason, many firms use a hybrid approach. They produce semi-finished goods ahead of customer demand (make-to-stock), and then customize the semi-finished goods when customer orders materialize (make-to-order). The first thrust area of this research deals with enhancing our understanding of production systems where products are made in this hybrid fashion. The focus is on exploring the use of various inventory control policies and production structures for these hybrid systems.