“…In these models, the ordering rule is based upon the forecasted demand (FD), the difference between the desired level of inventory (DINV) and the actual inventory level, and the difference between the desired level of WIP (DWIP) and the actual WIP level. The ordering rule is a very general replenishment rule, the advantages of which include ability to represent material requirements planning (MRP) systems as a special case (Disney, 2001), ability to represent order-up-to systems and many variants as special cases (Dejonckheere et al, 2003), lean and agile scheduling policies can be incorporated (Dejonckheere et al, 2003), re-entrant manufacturing systems can be modelled (Tang and Naim, 2004), vendor managed inventory (VMI) strategy can be coupled (Disney, 2001;Disney et al, 2003), representative of industrial performance in UK (Coyle, 1977), represents human behaviour models whilst playing the Beer Game (John et al, 1994).…”