http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/1507/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/1405/ 1997-01-01T00:00:00Z In this paper we analyse the effect of satisfying in a different way customers with an order larger than a prespecified cutoff transaction size, in a simple newsboy setting. For compound Poisson demand with discrete order sizes, we show how to determine the expected costs and the optimal cutoff transaction size. Moreover, by approximating the distribution of the total demand during a period by the normal distribution one can determine an expression for the average cost function that depends on the cutoff transaction size only. A main advantage of this approximation is that the computational effort is much less. The quality of using the normal approximation is evaluated through a number of numerical experiments, which show that the approximative results are satisfactory. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/1383/ 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z In this paper the effect of the break quantity rule on the inventory costs in a 1-warehouse, N-retailers distribution system is analyzed. The break quantity rule is to deliver large orders from the warehouse, and small orders from the nearest retailer, where a so--called break quantity determines whether an order is small or large. Under the assumptions that the stock at the warehouse can only be used to satisfy large orders, and that demand during the leadtimes is normally distributed, an expression for the inventory costs is derived. The objective of this paper is to provide insight into the effect of the break quantity rule on the inventory holding costs, and therefore we present extensive computational results, showing that in many cases the rule leads to a significant cost reduction.