In manufacturing companies, production strategies prioritize maximizing line efficiency which favors large lot sizes and few setups. On the other hand, logistics strategies prioritize minimizing inventory costs which favors smaller lot sizes and more setups. This thesis provides a new mixed integer linear model formulation that optimizes lot sizes such...
Medical devices companies struggle to balance between inventory and service performance, as the products are non-interchangeable and inventory investment is expensive. To find the right level of inventory, we first used unsupervised clustering method to find demand pattern uncertainty for each product. Then, we developed a simulation-based approach to determine...
Drug counterfeiting is one of the major issues in the pharmaceutical industry across the world. These products could cause damages from ineffective treatments to death of patients. In order to fight against counterfeit drugs, the US government introduced Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) mandating that all prescription drugs should...
Transportation cost is one of the major costs in supply chain. Companies need to optimize every aspect of the transportation process to reduce the total logistics cost. A key aspect is optimal mode selection to minimize the cost of every lane in a company’s transportation network. The traditional approach is...
Supply chains in the pharmaceutical industry are growing increasingly more complex and expanding their geographic reach both in manufacturing production and to the end consumer, the patient. Physical development, manufacturing and distribution of these drugs, both of biologics and small molecules, is extremely technical in science and processes. Additionally, the...
Many businesses struggle to optimize the flow of inventory and finished goods through existing plants and facilities. The integration of inventory costs, organizational processes, and changing business dynamics make it difficult to determine the optimal flow. This thesis examines the flow of raw materials and finished goods through the supply...
On-time delivery is a key metric in the trucking segment of the transportation industry. If on-time delivery can be predicted, more effective resource allocation can be achieved. This research focuses on building a predictive analytics model, specifically logistic regression, given a historical dataset. The model, developed using six explanatory variables...
High volatility in order patterns leads to supply chain wide inefficiencies and high operational costs. This issue is particularly common in the consumer goods industry due to large numbers of SKUs under management and frequent promotions. By leveling out the number of weekly shipments (containing constant quantitates of top selling...
This thesis explores the impact of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) on various stakeholders in the pharmaceutical supply chain. Specific attention has been dedicated to the impact on manufacturers and distributors/retailers. Although various interpretations of the DSCSA are possible, this thesis takes the perspective of a centralized data...
For companies with a large number of Stock Keeping Units (SKUs), it is extremely challenging, if not impossible, to manage the SKUs individually. Therefore, companies stratify SKUs into different classes and manage them by class. Currently, most companies identify SKU stratification based on the single factor of sales volume. This...
Logistics providers process millions of packages daily and collect an incredible amount of data from these shipments. As new sensors are added to more and more packages, companies will now have increasingly fast access to even more data. However, how will logistics companies leverage this idea of big data to...
Pharmaceutical supply chains are strictly regulated and work within unique constraints. Traditionally, innovator companies that are manufacturing the product have no direct interaction with the end users (treatment sites or individual patients); rather, over 90% of the orders go through intermediary wholesalers and distributors. However, with the introduction of new...
The United States has one of the safest drug supply chains in the world. However, its security is threatened by new challenges such as counterfeit, diverted, and illegally imported drugs. To counter the new challenges, the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) was signed into law by President Obama on...
Large pharmaceutical companies struggle to find innovative ways to reduce work-in- process inventory in their production facilities. In our research, we focus on the tradeoff between inventory and production capacity through investing in new facilities and equipment. This tradeoff will depend on the company’s objectives and what it is willing...
The craft brewing industry in New York State has grown rapidly over the past five years helped in part by New York State legislation called the Farm Brewery Act of 2012. The act imposes agricultural stipulations for breweries desiring to file for a Farm Brewing license. The hop industry will...
Manufacturers and retailers are increasingly interested in exploring different ways to optimize their fulfillment of e-Commerce orders. An approach that is often considered is drop-shipping, where the manufacturer takes on the responsibility of shipping directly to the consumer. Retailers are interested in this model as it shifts their inventory responsibility...
To be competitive, businesses must make supply network design decisions, but often with only limited information and under uncertain conditions. How can an organization understand trade-offs between supply network decisions, without relying on complex, black-box models that require extensive data collection and hidden assumptions? We apply approximation methods to estimate...
Order-picking is an integral operation in warehouses and distribution centers (DC), consuming considerable operating resources and expenses. Numerous studies have attempted to optimize the efficiency and reduce the cost of order-picking. In working with a partner company, this thesis evaluates a proposed mechanism for piece-picking that would achieve this end...
The oil and gas industry is very volatile; it is characterized by unpredictable cycles of sharp rises and plunges in oil prices. This cyclical nature presents a huge challenge for companies that are operating in the industry. Companies have to be able to ramp up their production quickly so that...
This thesis analyzes the impact on prices and capacity of trucking industry due to the introduction of ELD mandate. This mandate requires truck drivers to record their working hours in a specified electronic device instead of a pen and paper method. This thesis utilizes the change in average truck driver...
The company sponsoring our project is a leading chemical manufacturer, supplying a wide range of products on a global scale. One of the most interesting lines of business the company operates is to supply specialty chemicals in faraway places on few weeks’ notice. The nature of these supply chains is...
Multi-stop truckload has been gaining importance in recent years as part of a shift away from Less-than-truckload freight. In our research, we sought to understand how the price and carrier behavior vary as the number of stops increases. Rational economic theory says that these shipments will be more expensive, and...
The Hershey Company faces a risk of obsolescence across its supply chain as it follows the First In First Out (FIFO) technique at its manufacturing plant distribution center instead of distributing goods based on either the demand at each retailer’s end or the useable shelf life of the goods being...
What are the key store related parameters that drive sales for large retail chains? This question has become increasingly important to Lojas Americanas, the sponsor company. In the last few years, the company has expanded rapidly to cater to a larger group of consumers in a wide range of locations...
This study addresses a medical device company’s need to relicense its products for export after declaring a new legal manufacturer. New license applications are approved at an unknown date with increasing probability within a finite time horizon. Approval results in the instantaneous obsolescence, or “sudden- death,” of inventory bound for...
