Retailers must coordinate inbound shipments from a large number of vendors. In order to manage capacity, retailers need to have a system to prioritize inbound loads with capacitated carriers. This practice creates a constraint when the number of loads exceeds the capacity of committed carriers due to seasonality and consumer...
The unpredictable demand pattern during promotions leads to lost sales incurred due to frequent stock-outs, affecting the revenue and the brand of both the manufacturer and the retailer. The research focuses on finding out the root-causes of stock-outs in retail stores. It uses the audit response data that informs us...
Supply chains are exposed to a variety of risks as they become more complex and geographically diverse. Disruptions due to these risks can be costly. Companies cannot hope to mitigate all of their supply chain risks. In order to focus risk management resources on locations in the supply chain with...
What is the appropriate raw material inventory strategy for a make-to-order manufacturing company? As companies grow in size and the business environment changes over time, many companies adapt their operating policies to remain competitive. However, some policies, such as raw material inventory policies, are left untouched as “legacies” of the...
As supply chains become more global and complex, it increases the importance of end-to-end visibility into the material, information, and financial flows of a firm. This work covers various aspects of supply chain visibility such as current status, its benefits, and the benefit-enabling mechanisms, traced through multiple stages of research...
Recent advances in technological capability and economics have opened up a new world of capability known as the Internet of Things (IoT). The Internet of Things is the concept that all machines can be connected to the internet, and be remotely monitored through an infrastructure of interconnected software and hardware...
The choice of the location and number of warehouses is a strategic-level decision that can have a long- lasting impact on a firm’s performance. Warehouse locations and their capacities determine how products flow within a firm’s supply chain, which directly influences a firm’s performance in terms of cost and service...
Unilever, a large multi-national Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) company, uses water as an essential ingredient in its products and as a critical component in its manufacturing processes. In many instances, the price of water does not reflect market dynamics insofar as water is cheaper where there is low availability and...
Product tanker shipping companies in the spot market face severe volatility in demand and in price. We explore shipping companies' two problems: evaluating supply and demand of the market and assigning cargoes in order to maximize profitability. By approximating the market as a queueing system, we obtain utilization ratios, which...
Supply chain resiliency is a relatively new field within supply chain management. Many quantitative and qualitative resiliency frameworks are available. However, there is a need for a hybrid framework that provides a more comprehensive resiliency assessment. In this thesis, we attempt to synthesize important features from different assessment frameworks and...
Airfreight forwarding companies must develop accurate forecasting tools to analyze the suitability and attractiveness of each incoming bidding process, to decide whether to participate in a tender and how to define the optimal commercial strategy. The “1:6” weight/volume ratio establishes that whenever the cargo ratio is different from 1:6 (1m...
Non-asset backed third-party logistics companies provide shippers access to a flexible source of capacity through transportation carrier spot market. The increased volatility in the trucking spot market rates is turning the 3PL businesses more risky and complex. To maximize profitability, a better understanding of the risk and the volatility patterns...
The handicraft sector in Morocco represents more than 9% of the nation’s GDP and employs 2.3 million people. However, despite their talent and expertise, Morocco’s artisans are struggling to reach markets other than local regional or national markets. The main distribution model used so far has been the classic retail...
Optimization models are a commonly used tool to identify cost efficient network flows. Complexity increases when various products move across different paths and transportation modes within one network. To address the challenges posed by this complexity, this thesis develops a mixed integer linear programming model for a uniform rental company...
A challenging part of E-Commerce for perishable consumer packaged goods (PCPG) is the fulfillment. Given the fragile nature of the items shipped, they require a low cost, effective cold chain fulfillment method so as to keep integrity, ensure speed at an affordable low cost for the end consumer. Our research...
Natural disasters such as the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan in 2011 can have catastrophic effects on businesses. This type of unexpected event can cause millions of dollars in damages, lost sales and can impact company stock performance. With 39% of supply disruptions occurring at indirect suppliers, companies...
Pharmaceutical companies operating in Africa are well positioned to contribute to the United Nations’ ongoing efforts to improve access to medicine in Africa. This thesis explores how access to finance for businesses in the Ugandan private pharmaceutical supply chain affects access to medicine for end patients. Specifically, we consider three...
Improvement in sales forecasting allows firms not only to respond quickly to customers’ needs but also to reduce inventory costs, ultimately increasing their profits. Sales forecasts have been studied extensively to improve their accuracy in many different fields. However, for automotive batteries, it is very difficult to develop a highly...
This thesis focuses on a medical device manufacturer, DeCo, which offers surgical instruments to customers at no cost in order to facilitate the sale of implantable products that require the use of such instruments. DeCo is facing challenges in managing the supply chain for these outsourced instruments, such as long...
Promotions involve a complicated interplay of factors and are a result of a synchronized sequence of activities between manufacturers and retailers. The outcome of promotions pivot on several elements beyond the control of any one party in the supply chain. ‘How’ a promotion performed has a more straight forward answer...
Demand planning affects the subsequent business activities including distribution center operational planning and management. Today's competitive environment requires distribution centers to rapidly respond to changes in the quantity and nature of demand. For the distribution center, accurate forecasts will help managers to accordingly plan operational activities. In the present thesis...
Retailers are exploring more efficient ways to deliver to small format stores that demand frequent and small volume deliveries from Distribution Centers. The need to deliver products at different temperatures, viz. Ambient, Refrigerated and Frozen, reduces volumes that need to be delivered for each product category. One way to make...
As the US economy recovers from the recession of 2008, demand for freight transportation is getting stronger. However, the trucking industry is not ready to take on this growth in volume due to a shortage of truck drivers. From a shipper's perspective, availability of transportation is an important concern that...
This thesis focuses on the study of the carrier-shipper relationships in the US trucking market. It uses data provided by a leading third party logistics (3PL) company to explore and determine whether a relationship exists between the prices charged by the carriers and the performance that they provide to the...
The procurement and sourcing group of OG company was tasked to systematically forecast, design and develop the future state of the company’s next generation supply base. The main objective is to anticipate the preferred locations to source commodities such as machine parts from in the near future. In response to...
