Coordinated Logistics: Inventory Replenishment and Transportation in a Supply Chain
Seminar by Ülkü Gürler Department of Industrial Engineering
In this study, we examine the coordinated replenishment and transportation functions of a supply chain with N retailers and a warehouse in the presence of stochastic demand characterized by a Poisson process. We consider two alternative transportation practices with (i) in-house fleet with capacitated trucks and (ii) contracts with a 3PL provider. We also consider two alternative replenishment policies, namely the (Q,S) and (R,T) joint replenishment policies among the retailer. For the models mentioned above we derive the operating characteristics and the expected cost rates using the stochastic properties of the underlying processes. The objective is to minimized the expected cost rates with respect to policy parameters. Pros and cons of alternative replenishment policies and transportation options are discussed via numerical examples.
