A maker of venetian blinds builds a wide variety of products. Demand tends to be erratic and is difficult to forecast. Each order of a particular blind requires a set of components with some of the components (e.g., cords) being common to many finished items. The company’s policy is to satisfy any customer order within 1 week. The actual time dedicated to the satisfaction of an order, including some design work and retrieving the required set of components from inventory, varies between 1 and 3 days. Inventory records are not updated on a perpetual basis but rather the inventories of items are physically reviewed periodically

(with R varying from 2 weeks to 5 weeks, depending upon the item). An order-up-to level is used for each component. Make some realistic suggestions for improving the inventory management situation in this company. lpo897