Purpose: The lean methodology and its principles have widely been applied in supply chain management in recent decades. Manufacturers are one of the most important contributors in a supply chain and inventory plays a paramount role for them to become lean. Therefore, there should be appropriate management of inventory and all of its drivers in accordance with a lean strategy. Safety stock is one of the main drivers of inventory; it protects against increasing the stretch in the breaking points of the supply chain, which in turn can result in possible reduction of inventory. In this paper an optimization model and a simulation model are developed and applied in a real case to optimize the safety stock level with the objective of logistics cost minimization.

Design/methodology/approach: In order to optimize the safety stock level while minimizing logistics costs, a nonlinear cost minimization safety stock model is developed in this paper and then it is applied in a real world manufacturing case company. A safety stock simulation model based on appropriate metrics in the case company’s supply chain performance is also provided.

Findings: These models result in not only the optimum levels but also locations of safety stock within the supply chain.

Originality/value: In this research, two models of cost minimization and simulation have been developed and also applied in a real case company to result in not only optimized levels but also optimized locations of safety stock across the whole supply chain. In addition, the appropriate supply chain performance measurement metrics have been introduced in this paper and the simulation model is developed based on those.