Managing capacity and inventory jointly for multi-server make-to-stock queues

Abstract

We consider joint capacity---inventory management for multi-server make-to-stock queues operating under a base stock policy. The number of servers corresponds to the capacity decision, and the base stock level is the inventory decision. Our goal is to minimize a combination of capacity, inventory, and backordering costs. We develop a square-root rule for the joint decision and justify the rule analytically in a many-server queue asymptotic framework. We demonstrate the accuracy of the square-root rule, first via our derivation and numerical assessment of a novel corrected diffusion approximation and then more directly by conducting extensive numerical experiments. Finally, we provide operational insights into the trade-offs involved in such joint management problems, through various analysis based on the square-root rule as well as a comparison with analogous results for single-server make-to-stock queues.