The multi-item single period problem with an initial stock of convertible units

This paper deals with the situation of a number of end items, each facing uncertain demand in a single period of interest. Besides being able to purchase units of the end items there is also available a stock of units that can be converted into end items but at unit costs that depend on the specific end item. Efficient solution procedures are presented for two situations: (i) where the end item demand distributions are assumed known (illustrated for the case of normally distributed demand) and (ii) a distribution free approach where only the first two moments of the distributions are assumed known. Computational results for a set of problems are presented. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. AU rights reserved.