Peter Korevaar IBM Global Business Services, Gottlieb Daimler Strasse 12, D-68165 Mannheim, Germany (korevaarde.ibm.com). Dr. Korevaar joined IBM in 1991 after receiving a Ph.D. degree in physics and astronomy from the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, and completing a two-year postgraduate position at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He began work on applying metaheuristic optimization techniques in logistics and developed the IBM Warehouse Site Planner, which optimizes two-echelon vertical supply chains (central warehouse to regional warehouse to customer). He began the development of the IBM Dynamic Inventory Optimization Solution (DIOS) in 1997. After two years, the DIOS development was transferred to the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, Switzerland. In close cooperation with Dr. Boedi, the lead DIOS developer and coauthor of this paper, Dr. Korevaar worked on many customer engagements using DIOS and guided the ongoing development as a subject-matter expert on inventory optimization. The budget optimizer described in this paper was developed jointly by all of the authors. Dr. Korevaar now trains IBM consultants globally on DIOS and coaches project teams working on DIOS engagements worldwide.

Ulrich Schimpel IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, Säumerstrasse 4, CH-8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland (ulszurich.ibm.com). Mr. Schimpel joined IBM in 2004 after receiving an M.S. degree in information systems and management from the Friedrich-Alexander University, Germany. He is currently an external Ph.D. student at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. He began working in the area of SCM, especially inventory management, and further worked on the development of IBM DIOS under the supervision of Dr. Richard Boedi. Mr. Schimpel also worked closely with his two coauthors in the budget optimizer customer engagement.

Richard Boedi IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, Säumerstrasse 4, CH-8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland (rbozurich.ibm.com). Dr. Boedi joined IBM in 1998 after receiving his Ph.D. degree and Habilitation degree in mathematics from the University of Tübingen, Germany. He started work in the consulting group of IBM on continuing the development of the DIOS. He moved to IBM Research in 2000 and has been doing basic research and development for DIOS in close collaboration with Dr. Peter Korevaar. Dr. Boedi has worked on a large number of DIOS engagements and has given numerous internal and external education sessions about inventory management in general and DIOS in particular.