In this paper we discuss a framework for capacity planning and lead time management in manufacturing companies, with an emphasis on the machine shop. First we show how queueing models can be used to find approximations of the mean and the variance of manufacturing shop lead times. These quantities often serve as a basis to set a fixed planned lead time in an MRP-controlled environment. A major ...

We have assembled this mini-monograph on adult lead exposure to provide guidance to clinicians and public health professionals, to summarize recent thinking on lead biomarkers and their relevance to epidemiologic research, and to review two key lead-related outcomes, namely, cardiovascular and cognitive. The lead standards of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration are woefully o...

This paper highlights some of the key problems in reducing lead times for engineered-toorder construction products, specifically items of equipment such as electrical switchgear (“permanent plant equipment” in the jargon of the process industries). Lead time reduction has long been considered a fundamental objective in overall business improvement and is a cornerstone in lean thinking. The bene...

BACKGROUND A dengue early warning system aims to prevent a dengue outbreak by providing an accurate prediction of a rise in dengue cases and sufficient time to allow timely decisions and preventive measures to be taken by local authorities. This study seeks to identify the optimal lead time for warning of dengue cases in Singapore given the duration required by a local authority to curb an outb...

We study lead time options in a manufacturer and a retailer supply chain where the retailer uses the (R, Q) inventory policy: the retailer places an order to the manufacturer who initially promises to deliver the order a lead time later. The manufacturer also promises to expedite or postpone the delivery of the order by a certain amount of time if the retailer makes such a request. Consequently...

We study the important problem of how a supplier should optimally share the consequences of demand uncertainty (i.e., the cost of inventory excesses and shortages) with a retailer in a two-level supply chain facing a finite planning horizon. In particular, we characterize a multiperiod contract form, the promised lead-time contract, that reduces the supplier’s risk from demand uncertainty and t...

BACKGROUND Lead exposure is known to be harmful to the male reproductive system, including impairment of fertility. However, it is unclear whether currently existing low levels of exposure have this effect. AIMS To study retrospectively current workers in lead using industries (battery manufacture, smelting, etc), and in non-lead using control industries, in four European countries, with Time...