Multi-scale inventory balancing in an extended global supply chain

Dell is a well-known consumer electronics manufacturer that has experienced astounding rates of revenue growth since its inception in 1984. Regarded as a supply chain innovator, Dell has attained success through industry-revolutionizing ideas such as vendor-managed inventory, pull manufacturing, and direct sales. Today, continuance of revenue growth for Dell requires not only rapid innovation, but also rapid geographic and product expansion. Until a few years ago, Dell only had one facility in the United States. All of Dell's US-based systems and processes were constructed to optimize this single factory. Since 1999, Dell has added a number of new facilities in the US - factories and merge centers - for the sake of proximity to customers as well as additional capacity. Also, Dell recently began practicing more product leveling than in the past, producing multiple types of systems at the same factory. Finally, Dell's US supply base has migrated to Asia, as have those of most in the industry. This confluence of complexities has led to a significant increase in instances of material imbalances, whereby any given part has not been distributed to the various sites in accordance with their proportion of actual demand, often resulting in costly expedites from site to site or delayed shipments to customers.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Reyner, Amy M

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jonathan L.S. Byrnes and Jeremie Gallien.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Mechanical Engineering.
• Leaders for Manufacturing Program.

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/1721.1/37243

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37243