Applications of analogue computers in operational research
D.P. Deziel · Spiral (Imperial College London) · 1966
The use of an analogue computer for solving several problems in operational research is described.The first concerns a production process where the output mean is subject to drift and items produced outside specification limits incur an additional cost.The problem is to determine how often the process should be stowed andre--set in order to minimise the average cost of-production.Various cost parameters and trend variations are considered.The use of an analogue for locating distribution centres is described, where it is required to minimise a linear weighted function of the distances between a number of lin77.edpoints.An extension of the method to the problem of locating emergency centres is also described.Various Odscrete production-inventory control models are considered and methods of simulating these on an analogue computer are given.Results obtained are used to formulate optimal re-order rule policies for prescribed demand patterns and performance criteria.