Inbound freight consolidation for US manufacturers at China

In recent years, China has become the world factory for a sizable portion of products. Most manufacturing conglomerates in the United States now have contract manufacturing plants in China. Because many of these US companies have implemented a variety of inventory reduction approaches, they are now faced with the expensive transportation of large numbers of low-weight, small- quantity shipments in international inbound transportation, transportation that covers the flows of goods from contract manufacturers (CMs) in China to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the States. While there has been research on consolidation, little attention has been paid to international inbound freight consolidation, which provides a potential savings opportunity in international transportation by combining several small shipments into one large shipment. This paper examines how manufacturers in the United States can use freight consolidation in their international inbound transportation flow from CMs in China. It then explores a framework for designing inbound consolidation, focusing on how to implement inbound consolidation in the context of China's fast-evolving logistics industry.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Fang, Yi, M. Eng. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Christopher Caplice.

• Engineering Systems Division.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35538

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/35538