Piece picking is an integral operation in distribution centres (DCs). The partner company has it as the largest part cost item of DC operations. The current product slotting and assignment planning needs to be improved to improve space utilization and reduce labour expenses. The team approached the problem by using...
There is a current lack of visibility in the transfer of goods from farmers to oil mills, to manufacturers, to retail outlets and finally to the consumer in the palm oil industry. While leading brands have pledged to commit to a 100% sustainable certification, only 19% of global palm oil...
The speed at which a manufacturing company analyzes big data and reacts to the market trends can be key to its success. In consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, a delay in analyzing the huge amounts of data produced could result in missing opportunities to identify patterns that indicate problems, and...
The project sponsor is a reverse logistics company that provides Returnable Transport Items (RTIs) to large manufacturing companies, distributors and retailers. Its business model is characterized by a unique closed-loop supply chain. The seasonal peak demand for RTIs from June to September negatively impacts service levels and costs. The sponsor...
Truckload cancellations by carriers are causing disruptions in the trucking industry operations. By extrapolating the findings from the 3PL’s data studied in this research to the whole trucking industry, it is estimated that 32 million cancellations occur every year. These cancellations result in around $4.6 billion extra cost. If these...
Industrial digitalization concepts such as Industry 4.0 or Smart Manufacturing are currently of great interest in academia and among industrial players. These concepts are expected to boost companies’ manufacturing supply chain performance factors such as availability and productivity. For instance, greater availability of assets on the shop floor makes the...
Climate catastrophes (i.e. tornadoes, hail, hurricanes, etc.) have a significant economic and operational impact on the operation of call centers. It was found that catastrophe events such as hurricanes critically impact the operation of the affected location for a period of two months after the hurricane has occurred. A sudden...
The transportation sector is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions; hence, it is desirable to lower carbon emissions from this sector, especially with the expected growth in transportation needs from e-commerce. Since a particular vehicle type may exhibit different emissions characteristics when operating in different regions, determining which vehicle...
In today's world, the e-commerce market is growing rapidly and becoming more competitive. While any players in the industry are attempting to get their share of pie, consumers are demanding faster deliveries and free shipping. This market growth and change in consumer behavior provides an exciting opportunity for companies to...
Companies trading cementitious materials face an increasingly volatile economic environment and continuous challenges to ensure the availability of strategic raw materials. In this context, the ability to globally source slag represents a competitive advantage for cement companies because of the limited availability of the material, its importance in the cement...
A large majority of companies in Latin America are micro or small firms, making them an important part of the region’s economy. These firms are a relevant source of jobs, but a lack of managerial skills and resources threatens their survival. In this study, we analyze a set of supply...
Supply chain network optimization is presently performed by solving a cost minimization problem, without regard for potential revenue generation through endogenous demand. This capstone report analyzes several incarnations of endogenous demand expression and factors these incarnations in network design optimization by modelling the problem with a profit maximization objective. Under...
Millions of mom-and-pop stores represent 40-70% of the market share of Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies. Many of these stores are located in megacities in developing countries, cities over 10 million people, where characteristics such as traffic congestion and a dense population make the last-mile delivery process very complex. Therefore...
With the increasingly competitive landscape of e-commerce and omni-channel delivery execution, the last mile has emerged as a critical source of opportunity for cost efficiency. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have historically been utilized for military applications, but they are quickly gaining traction as a viable option for driving improvements in...
Ongoing humanitarian operations can suffer from the lack of medical item availability. The central problem thus becomes how to ensure the right item in the right place at the right time while maintaining appropriate costs. By means of a case study, this research grouped items by various item characteristics and...
According to a report by A. T. Kearney, in 2016 the US business spent $1,392.64B on logistics costs. 90% of transportation spending is procured in the form of Long Term Contracts. A Long Term Contract drives long procurement cycles that can last over 6 months, which results in significant financial...
Excess inventory is prevalent in both the armed forces and defense companies; it takes up space and resources that could be used elsewhere. This thesis proposes a method to reduce the excess inventory and associated costs, while maintaining instant part availability, despite design changes which alter the number of parts...
Supply chains are facing increasingly volatile environments. Traditional optimization solutions provide a baseline understanding for industry applications, but cost-efficient solutions require a more robust approach. In high-tech capital construction projects, the construction of facilities requires complex project schedules, forecast well in advance. These forecasts are used to hire contract workers...
This research analyzed freight performance to determine the groupings of attributes that influence carrier performance. Binary logistic regression and hierarchical clustering were used to identify individual and groupings of freight attributes that impacted performance success in terms of on time delivery, on time pick up, and first tender acceptance rate...
Supply chain visibility is critical for businesses to manage their operational risks. Availability of high quality and timely data regarding shipments is a precursor for supply chain visibility. This thesis analyses the errors that occur in shipment data for a freight forwarder. In this study, two types of errors are...
Traditionally, production and transportation planning processes are managed separately in organizations. In such arrangements, order processing, load planning, and transportation scheduling are often done sequentially, which can be time consuming. Establishing a proactive steady flow of products between two nodes of a supply chain can bypass this order-plan-ship process. A...
The oil and gas industry is characterized by unpredictable boom and busts cycles. Companies must manage capacity to be able to quickly meet increasing demand during boom cycles and survive when oil prices go down. During this time, companies resort to in-house sourcing (“Make”) or buying externally (“Buy”) from suppliers...
Due to the long lead times and complexity in drug development and approval processes, pharmaceutical companies use long range planning to plan their production for the next 10 years. Capacity planning is largely driven by the long-term demand and its forecast uncertainty. The impact of uncertainties at manufacturing level, such...
The security alarms services market in the United States delivers hardware equipment and services to homeowners and businesses to help monitor and enhance personal property protection. Customer satisfaction via wait time reduction, first call resolution, and cost minimization are key drivers of success to players in this market. Most companies...
Returnable Transport Items (RTI) are a critical component of domestic and international trade. The large variability in the geographic supply and demand of goods shipped using RTI impacts the items overall availability at different locations within a network. This research focuses on improving our partner firm’s RTI inventory supply in...
