Essays in Measuring, Controlling, and Coordinating Supply Chain Inventory and Transportation Operations

<p>Supply chain collaboration programs, such as continuous replenishment program (CRP), is among the most popular supply chain management practices. CRP is an arrangement between two partners in a supply chain to share information on a regular basis for lowering logistics costs while maintaining or increasing service levels. CRP shifts the replenishment responsibility to the upstream partner to avoid the bullwhip effect across the supply chain. This dissertation aims to quantify, measure, and expand the benefits of CRP for the purpose of reducing logistics cost and improving customer service. The developed models in this dissertation are all applied in different case studies supported by a group of major healthcare partners. The first research contribution, discussed in chapter 2, is a comprehensive data-driven cost approximation model that quantifies the benefits of CRP for both partners under three cost components of inventory holding, transportation and ordering processing without imposing assumptions that normally do not hold in practice. The second contribution, discussed in chapter 3, is development of a verifiable efficiency measurement system to ensure the benefits of CRP for all partners. Multi-functional efficiency metrics are designed to capture the trade-off in gaining efficiency between multiple functions of logistics (i.e. inventory efficiency, transportation efficiency, and order processing efficiency). In addition, a statistical process control (SPC) system is developed to monitor the metrics over time. We discuss suitable SPC systems for various time series behaviors of the metrics. The third contribution of the dissertation, discussed in chapter 4, is development of a multi-objective decision analysis (MODA) model for multi-stop truckload (MSTL) planning. MSTL is becoming increasing popular among shippers while is experiencing significant resistance from carriers. MSTL is capable of reducing the shipping cost of shippers substantially but it can also disrupt carriers’ operations. A MODA model is developed for this problem to incorporate the key decision criteria of both sides for identifying the most desirable multi-stop routes from the perspective both decision makers. </p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Year dc:date.available

2017

Author dc:creator

• Parsa, Payam

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Rossetti, Manuel D.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Pohl, Edward A.
• Zhang, Shengfan

• Multi-stop Truckload
• Supply Chain Collabortion
• Supply Chain Management
• Transportation Efficiency
• Vendor Managed Inventory
• Industrial Engineering
• Operations and Supply Chain Management
• Transportation Engineering

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/2472

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarworks.uark.edu:etd-4012