The last decades have seen an increasing diversity of customer expectations and growing
competitive pressure for a wide variety of industries. Customer segmentation and subsequent
inventory rationing provide a way to cope with those customer demands while maintaining a
competitive offer. The general idea resembles the yield management practised in the airline or
hotel industries: Demand fulfilment for low priority customers might be refused or delayed in
order to reserve stock for more important clients. This dissertation thesis from Karin
Möllering provides a comprehensive introduction to inventory rationing. It gives an overview of
the different approaches studied and identifies state-of-the-art rules. In a second step the
book particularly focuses on an easy-to-implement but highly efficient rationing strategy. For
this strategy a mathematical model is developed that allows for optimization under different
objectives. Potential readership includes scholars of inventory control and management science
students interested in these areas as well as practitioners involved in formulating and
implementing rationing strategies.
