Warehouse network design for a commodity chemicals manufacturer

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 level. This research applies a mixed integer linear programming method to evaluate factors that drive existing inefficiencies in a warehouse network belonging to a Thai commodity chemicals manufacturer. The objective is to determine an optimal warehouse network configuration that minimizes the firm's total transportation and warehousing cost. Inventory turns and storage capacity constraints are found to be the key drivers of inefficiencies. The optimal solution suggests that the company should retain fewer warehouses and expand capacities at these locations. As the company continues to grow, the potential benefit from expansion becomes greater.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Supply Chain Management Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Pornnoparat, Dangfun

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• James B. Rice, Jr.

• Supply Chain Management Program.
• Engineering Systems Division.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written 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/1721.1/107512

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/107512