Optimal scheduling of purchasing orders for large projects

In this paper we generalize the newsboy model to optimize the scheduling of purchasing orders for large projects. The timely completion of a typical project hinges upon receiving all the purchased components by the time they are scheduled to be used. We show how to minimize the total expected cost of the project, including lateness penalty cost and holding costs. The main contribution of the paper is in solving the problem for more than one component while considering the interdependencies that exist among them. We outline an analytic solution and present fast heuristics.