Evaluation of Global Transportation Systems—Classical Approach Versus Intelligent Approach. Case Study Analysis

Abstract

The chapter presents the evaluation and selection of the most desired global transportation systems of goods’ delivery for the company operating in the household appliances industry. Pursuant to the company policy, some of the manufacturing components are being delivered from the Far East, in particular from the factory located in China. Such delivery process involves a lot of difficulties resulting from the distance, which also affects the transportation time. In order to reduce the negative influence of all these aspects on the other processes inside the company (e.g. number of stock in storage) Plant Director (acting as a Decision Maker DM) decided to look for alternative solutions aiming at minimisation of the stock in storage, such as rationalisation of the delivery method and optimisation of the costs and time of delivery, thereby increasing its security and timeliness. In order to evaluate the possible global transportation systems, the number of calculations have been performed including different methodologies, in particular the scoring method represented by the classical approach to decision making and Promethee II method (the ranking method used in Multi-Criteria Decision Making/Aiding methodology, one of the tool of Intelligent Decision Making). As a result of the computational experiments the final rankings of the global transportation systems have been generated, enabling DM the choice of the most accurate transportation solution.