Our economy and national infrastructures are dependent on a range of socio-technical systems and, by and large, these systems can be trusted to provide a dependable service. For example, electricity and telecommunication systems are generally reliable, the bank ATM network can usually deliver cash to authorised customers and automated stock control systems have meant that large stores and super...

The primary consequence of just-in-time (JIT) production is reduction of inventory. The associated benefit is (a) improved cashflow due to less financial resource tied up in inventory, and (b) less storage space required hence more productive plant area. Coupled with lean production and total quality management (TQM), it may also be possible to (c) improve worker productivity, (d) improve produ...

Traditional computerised inventory control systems usually rely on exponential smoothing to forecast the demand for fast moving inventories. Practices in relation to slow moving inventories are more varied, but the Croston method is often used. It is an adaptation of exponential smoothing that 1) incorporates a Bernoulli process to capture the sporadic nature of demand and 2) allows the average...