This paper considers the problem of a vendor (manufacturer) supplying a product to a buyer (customer). The vendor manufactures the product in batches at a finite rate and ships the output to the buyer. The buyer then consumes the product at a fixed rate. The objective is to minimize the mean total cost per unit time of manufacturing set-up, stock transfer and stock holding. Previously published work has concentrated on finding optimal solutions from within given classes of policy. We derive the structure of the globally-optimal solution, set out an algorithm for obtaining it and illustrate the process with two numerical examples.
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Roger M. Hill (1999) studied this question.