An economic lot-sizing technique, I: The part-period algorithm

The Part Period Algorithm performs well in all environments, but is particularly well suited for industries whose demand forecast extends for a limited number of periods, and for those whose forecast is appreciably more accurate in the near future than for the more distant future. In the short-horizon environment, PPA outperforms the other algorithms tested. In addition, considerably few computations are required by the Part Period Algorithm than of the other tested algorithms with comparable performance. In the "knowndemand, long-horizon" environment, setup and holding-cost performance with PPA is, on the average, approximately half of one percent higher than minimum cost.