Prof. Xiuli Chao
University of Michigan
Talk:
Simple approximation policies with worst case performance bounds for several analytically intractable stochastic inventory systems
Abstract:
We consider several stochastic inventory systems that lack of structures for their optimal control policies, including periodic-review inventory models with setup cost and finite ordering capacity, remanufacturing systems with setup cost and finite production capacities, and perishable inventory systems with or without setup costs and arbitrary product lifetimes. The demand processes can be non-stationary and correlated over time, such as Markov modulated demand processes, Martingale models for forecast evolution (MMFE), etc. The exact computations of the optimal policies for such systems are not possible even in the special cases when the optimal solutions exhibit nice structure due to curse of dimensionality. We develop easily computable operational policies for such systems that have provably worst case performance bounds, and numerical tests show that these policies perform near optimal. This talk is based on joint works with Xiting Gong, Retsef Levi, Cong Shi, and Robert Zhang.
Biography:
Xiuli Chao’s research interests include queueing, scheduling, financial engineering, inventory control, and supply chain management. He has also held regular or visiting positions at the University of California at Irvine, Columbia University, North Carolina State University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and National University of Singapore. Dr. Chao is the co-developer of Lekin Scheduling System. He is the co-author of two books, “Operations Scheduling with Applications in Manufacturing and Services” (Irwin/McGraw-Hill, 1998), and “Queueing Networks: Customers, Signals, and Product Form Solutions” (John Wiley & Sons, 1999). Chao received the 1998 Erlang Prize from the Applied Probability Society of Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS), and the 2005 David Baker Distinguished Research Award from the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE). He has consulted for many companies on logistics, supply chains, and inventory management. Chao is a fellow of both IISE and INFORMS.
