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It is obvious that an inventory item's lead time demand is affected by the length of the lead time as well as the actual demand on each day during the lead time. In a situation where the lead time and the daily demand are both stochastic, the probability distribution of an item's lead time demand is then determined by the probability distributions of the item's daily demand and lead time. This article presents a computationally simple method for determining the lead time demand's probability distribution from estimations of the item's daily demand and lead time probability distributions; no restriction is placed on the distribution forms of the daily demand, the lead time and the lead time demand. After obtaining the lead time demand distribution, this article illustrates the computation of “reorder points” and “protection levels” for an inventory item.

The general practice in implementing an appointment scheduling rule (ASR) is to enforce a certain rule, such as “block appointment”, to schedule customer arrivals in service systems. There are several commonly used ASRs that have been used in such service systems as public and private clinics and restaurant reservations, most of which tend to minimize the idle time or optimize the utilization rate of the service facility while neglecting customers′ waiting times. One commonly used ASR in real‐world service systems, which schedules several customers to arrive at the start of each service session, tends to induce long customer waiting time, but manages to keep the facility idle time fairly low. Introduces an ASR to reduce customers′ waiting time considerably while increasing the facility idle time at a manageable minimum. Evaluates environmental factors that may affect the performance of ASRs, such as the probability of no‐shows, the coefficient of variation of service times, and the number of customers per service session. Discusses several exceptional situations such as walk‐ins, seasonality of customer arrivals, and multiple‐priority/queues.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.