AbstractA method is described for maintaining overall inventories close to the minimum level, in the situation of keeping stocks of parts to be issued for assemblies.Simulation results show that the minimum total inventory level is reached when approximately 80 per cent of the assemblies can be commenced at the scheduled time. Furthermore, by additional simulations it is shown that this performance figure can only be attained by a 30 per cent increase of inventory if inferior strategies are used.The power of the method is directly related to the wide ranges of item values and item commonalities which are present.