Stochastic production planning with production constraints: A summary

Abstract

The corresponding problem with an unconstrained control law p(.) E (--,a) has a simple closed-form solution as presented in Sethi and Thomp~on.~ The research described herein illustrates that ( 3 ) makes the problem sufficiently difficult that a closed-form solution is probably unattainable, and that even showing the general form of the optimal policy is nontrivial. In addition, finding a numerical solution to the problem presents a challenge, although our approximate method described later is probably adequate in practice.