This study considers a multi-stage multi-item production plant with its supply chain and customer environment. The production, supply and inventory plan is optimized on a dual-mode basis, under two different information patterns. The short-term plan relies on firm orders received from customers. On the contrary, the long-term plan is based on predicted demands represented by random sequences. In this study, the role of the long-term plan is mainly to impose a final condition set to the short-term plan. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.