Abstract
Supply-chain configuration has recently gained increasing attention both from the practitioner's perspective and as a research area. This paper proposes an integrated model for designing and optimising international logistics networks. It consists of a mixed integer linear programming model and a data-mapping section (i.e. methodological guidelines for gathering and processing the data necessary to set up the model). It has been specifically developed for solving the configuration problem for supply chains characterised by a complexity level typical of real-life global logistics networks. Although this topic is well understood and well elaborated at a technical level in the extant literature, it still presents obstacles in practice especially in terms of dealing with real-life complexity, service-level constraints and data mapping. Thus, we developed our integrated approach with the aim to fill these gaps. We designed our model for dealing with multiple-layer, single location-layer, multiple-commodity and time-constrained logistics networks, to be implemented in a single period time horizon and in a deterministic environment. The proposed approach represents an innovative contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge and facilitates the data gathering and processing activities, which are largely recognised as complex and time-consuming processes for the management of logistics activities.
Highlights
The recent evolutions of the world economy and of the competitive environment, such as the rise of global sourcing and the recent turmoil of the economic climate, compel companies to confront a series of challenges
European Journal of Operational Research, 196(2): 401–412. , ), we found that the main objective of the reviewed configuration models is total logistics cost minimisation (75.6%), with 17.2% of the contributions focused on maximising the company's profit and 7.2% of the reviewed articles characterised by a multi-objective function
The logistics network configuration model we propose in this paper, built considering all the directions identified in the previous sections, is based on mixed integer linear programming (MILP) and is completed by a data-mapping section
Summary
The recent evolutions of the world economy and of the competitive environment, such as the rise of global sourcing and the recent turmoil of the economic climate, compel companies to confront a series of challenges By optimising its supply-chain configuration in terms of optimal location of its distribution centres, the company was able to minimise supply-chain costs while satisfying service-level requirements in different scenarios Another example regards the car manufacturer BMW: in 2006, by exploiting the optimisation of its supply chain, it improved its long-term load planning for the production of cars, which is an essential phase in BMW's strategic-planning process The objective of the current study is to propose a logistics network configuration model based on linear programming able to address and manage the complexity of a factual supply chain (i.e. characterised by a relevant number of nodes and by a series of constraints).
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