Improving productivity by using strategic inventories: theoretical issues and field results

The study investigated the effectiveness of a new proposed inventory contro l technique to improve materials productivity for make-to-order and/or asse mbly-to-order companies. This new model is designed to manage peaks of fini shed products market demand, allowing the operative working capital to be r educed. The model fits real-life manufacturing environments where a satisfa ctory level of return on investments in capital goods is a prerequisite. Fu rthermore, the model can face the changing external environment and the par ameters upon which production system performances depend. This is particula rly true when the control technique is required to react to a reduction of the delivery lead-time, which is commonplace of the majority of competitive markets. Finally, a multistage production system environment is analysed e arly and the applicability of the model in various real-life industrial env ironments is suggested. To this purpose, a set of case histories of Italian companies belonging to different branches of industry is reported.