The impact of bimodal distribution in ocean transportation transit time on logistics costs : an empirical & theoretical analysis

As ocean shipments have increased alongside globalization, transit time uncertainty has increased as well. This problem was observed to have variable levels of impacts on logistics cost and safety stock levels. This thesis examines the effects of bimodality in transit time distributions -in particular, the cost of ignoring bimodality. One method common in practice is to completely ignore variability. On the other hand, a popular theoretical method to account for transit time variability is to assume that demand over transit time is normally distributed. Which is, in many cases, false. To display the incorrectness of such assumptions, the paper will compare the two approaches to empirical analysis on bimodal transit time distributions.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Das, Lita

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Chris 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/1721.1/81117

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/81117