A small brass distributor modernized with four OR methods at once

The Merit Brass Company, a brass-fitting distributor, set out in mid-1990 to improve customer service as cheaply as possible, since service was the deciding variable in its industry; its people-intensive systems had simply been outgrown.

It built one integrated management system on four OR methodologies: statistical forecasting, cellular manufacturing, manufacturing and purchasing resource planning (MRP), and finished-goods inventory management.

The four components were implemented together at a modest cost and in record time, and their effects were both synergistic and dramatic, materially improving customer service while cutting costs.

Stack four OR methods, not one

Forecasting, production planning and inventory are interdependent levers.

A single method leaves the other constraints unmanaged.

One integrated system lets each model feed and tighten the next.

Measured: dramatic service gains and lower costs at a modest cost.

When a firm's constraints are interdependent, apply the related OR methods as one system rather than one at a time, since each feeds the next; together they beat the sum of the parts.

The modernization became a documented management-science case, a Franz Edelman Award finalist, and a proof that operations research is not only for large firms — a small distributor could deploy a full planning stack cheaply and fast.