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times to be fixed, zero, constant, deterministic, or negligible. They gain exact or approximate solutions. Dekker et al. analyses the effect of the breakquantity rule on the inventory costs. The breakquantity rule is to deliver large orders from the warehouse, and small orders from the nearest retailer, where a socalled break quantity determines whether an order is small or large. In most lwarehouse–Nretailers distribution systems, it is assumed that all customer demand takes place at the retailers. However, it was shown by Dekker et al. that delivering large orders from the warehouse can lead to a considerable reduction in the retailer’s inventory costs. In Dekker et al. the results of Dekker et al. were extended by also including the inventory costs at the warehouse. The study by Mohebbi and Posner’s contains a cost analysis in the context of a continuousreview inventory system with replenishment orders and lost sales. The policy considered in the paper by Vander Heijden et al. is an echelon stock, periodic review, orderupto policy, under both stochastic demand and lead times. The main purpose of Iida’s paper is to show that nearmyopic policies are acceptable for a multiechelon inventory problem. It is assumed that lead times at each echelon are constant. Chen and Song’s objective is to minimize the longrun average costs in the system. In the system by Chen et al., each location employs a periodicreview, or lotsize reorder point inventory policy. They show that each location’s inventory positions are stationary and the stationary distribution is uniform and independent of any other. In the study by Minner et al., the impact of manufacturing flexibility on inventory investments in a distribution work consisting of a central depot and a number of local stock points is investigated. Chiang and Monahan present a twoechelon dualchannel inventory model in which stocks are kept in both a manufacturer warehouse (upper echelon) and a retail store (lower echelon), and the product is available in two supply channels: a traditional retail store and an interenabled direct channel. Johansen’s system is assumed to be controlled by a basestock policy. The independent and stochastically dependent lead times are pared. To sum up, these papers consider two or Nechelon inventory systems, with generally stochastic demand, except for one study that considers Markovmodulated demand. They generally assume constant lead time, but two of them accept it to be stochastic. They gain exact or approximate solutions. In multiechelon inventory management there are some other research techniques used in literature, such as heuristics, varyMETRIC method, fuzzy sets, model predictive control, scenario analysis, statistical analysis, and GAs. These methods are used rarely and only by a few authors. A multiproduct, multistage, and multiperiod scheduling model is proposed by Chen and Lee to deal with multiple inmensurable goals for a multiechelon SC work with uncertain market demands and product prices. The uncertain market demands are modeled as a number of discrete scenarios with known probabilities, and the fuzzy sets are used for describing the sellers’ and buyers’ inpatible preference on product prices.