Thomson McLintock Whitin (January 12, 1923 – December 9, 2013) was an American

management scientist Management science (or managerial science) is a wide and interdisciplinary study of solving complex problems and making strategic decisions as it pertains to institutions, corporations, governments and other types of organizational entities. It is ...

, and Emeritus Professor of Economics and Social Sciences at

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...

, known for his work on

inventory control Inventory control or stock control can be broadly defined as "the activity of checking a shop's stock". It is the process of ensuring that the right amount of supply is available within a business. However, a more focused definition takes into acco ...

and

inventory management Field inventory management commonly known as inventory management is the function of understanding the stock mix of a company and the different demands on that stock. The demands are influenced by both external and internal factors and are balan ...

Biography

Born and raised in Northbridge, Massachusetts, Whitin graduated from Kent School in

Kent, Connecticut Kent is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. Located alongside the border with New York, the town's population was 3,019 according to the 2020 census. Kent is home to three boarding schools: Kent School, the Marvelwood School ...

, in 1940 and received his AB from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in 1943. He then joined the U.S. Navy, where he became gunnery officer on the ''Essex''-class aircraft carrier USS ''Bon Homme Richard'' (CV-31). After the war he returned to Princeton, where he received his AM and PhD late 1940s. After graduation Whitin started his academic career as associate professor at

in its Economics Department. In 1953 he moved to the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, where he was appointed professor of economics in the School of Industrial Management. From 1956 to 1958 he was chief economist at the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington, D.C., and returned to MIT for another two years. In 1960 he was appointed professor of business administration at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

. In 1963 he moved back to Connecticut to the

, where he was appointed Chester D. Hubbard Professor of Economics and Social Sciences, where he stayed until his retirement June 30, 1993. In 1958 Whitin and Harvey M. Wagner wrote the article "Dynamic version of the economic lot size model.", which would become the seminal work on the dynamic lot-size model. Whitin died aged 90 in Tiverton, Rhode Island, in December 2013.

Publications

Books:Whitin, Thomson M.
on ''worldcat.org'' *1953. ''The Theory of Inventory Management''. (1957, 1970) Princeton University Press *1954. ''Inventory Control Research: A Survey'' *1957. ''Dynamic Problems in the Theory of the Firm''. With Harvey M. Wagner. Rand Corp Santa Monica Calif. *1963. ''Analysis of Inventory Systems''. With G. Hadley. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall *1967. ''Inventory Control and Price Theory''. Articles, a selection: *1952. "Inventory control in theory and practice." ''Quarterly Journal of Economics'', Nov 1952. *1953. "Classical theory, Graham's theory, and linear programming in international trade." ''The Quarterly Journal of Economics'' 67.4. p. 520-544. *1958. "Dynamic version of the economic lot size model." With H.M. Wagner in: '' Management Science'', Vol. 5, pp. 89–96, 1958 *1961. "A family of inventory models" with G. Hadley, Management Science

References

External links

Thomson M. Whitin
obituary {{DEFAULTSORT:Whitin, Thomson M. 1923 births 2013 deaths American operations researchers Kent School alumni MIT Sloan School of Management faculty Princeton University alumni Princeton University faculty Haas School of Business faculty Wesleyan University faculty People from Northbridge, Massachusetts Fellows of the Econometric Society United States Navy personnel of World War II