Supply Chain Management

Integrating Order-to-Delivery Time Sensitivity in E-Commerce Middle-Mile Consolidation Network Design

  • Lacy M. Greening
  • Mathieu Dahan
  • Alan L. Erera
    • Categories Production and Logistics, Supply Chain Management, Transportation Tags , , ,

    This paper proposes an approach that leverages data on customer purchasing sensitivity to quoted order-to-delivery times (ODTs) when designing middle-mile consolidation networks to maximize the profit of e-commerce retailers. Our approach integrates quoted ODT-dependent sales volume predictions into a new mixed-integer program (MIP) that simultaneously determines ODT quotes and a consolidation plan, characterized by the … Read more

    Customer Satisfaction and Differentiated Pricing in E-Retail Delivery

  • Dipayan Banerjee
  • Alan L. Erera
  • Alejandro Toriello
    • Categories Applications - OR and Management Sciences, Production and Logistics, Supply Chain Management Tags , ,

    We study a system in which a common delivery fleet provides service to both same-day delivery (SDD) and next-day delivery (NDD) orders placed by e-retail customers who are sensitive to delivery prices. We develop a model of the system and optimize with respect to two separate objectives. First, empirical research suggests that fulfilling e-retail orders … Read more

    A Robust Location-Allocation Model for Optimizing a Multi-Echelon Blood Supply Chain Network Under Uncertainty

  • Masoud Asadpour Ahmadchali
  • Mahdi Ebrahimzadeh Afrouzi
    • Categories Robust Optimization, Supply Chain Management Tags , , , , ,

    Designing and planning blood supply chains is very complicated due to its uncertain nature, such as uncertain blood demand, high vulnerability to disruptions, irregular donation, and blood perishability. In this vein, this paper seeks to optimize a multi-echelon blood supply chain network under uncertainty by designing a robust location-allocation model. The magnitude of the earthquake … Read more

    Using Neural Networks to Guide Data-Driven Operational Decisions

  • Ningyuan Chen
  • Saman Lagzi
    • Categories Applications - OR and Management Sciences, Supply Chain Management, Yield Management Tags , , ,

    We propose to use Deep Neural Networks to solve data-driven stochastic optimization problems. Given the historical data of the observed covariate, taken decision, and the realized cost in past periods, we train a neural network to predict the objective value as a function of the decision and the covariate. Once trained, for a given covariate, … Read more

    Multi-Echelon Inventory Management for a Non-Stationary Capacitated Distribution Network

  • Alvaro Maggiar
  • Irene Song
  • Alp Muharremoglu
    • Categories Applications - OR and Management Sciences, Dynamic Programming, Supply Chain Management Tags , ,

    We present an inventory management solution for a non-stationary capacitated multi-echelon distribution network involving thousands of products. Assuming backlogged sales, we revisit and leverage the seminal multi-echelon inventory management results in the literature to establish the structural properties of the problem, and derive an efficient and practical solution method. In particular, we describe how the … Read more

    Robust planning of production routing problem in closed-loop supply chain of beverage glass bottles

  • Ali Borumand
  • Ahmadreza Marandi
  • Ali Nookabadi
  • Zümbül Atan
    • Categories Robust Optimization, Stochastic Programming, Supply Chain Management Tags , , , ,

    Closed-loop supply chains (CLSC) integrate forward and reverse flows of products and information. This integration helps companies to manage their supply chains better as they have more control and a broader view of the whole chain. Also, companies can have economic and environmental benefits from the returned products. Despite these advantages, managing CLSCs can be … Read more

    Distributionally Robust Inventory Management with Advance Purchase Contracts

  • Yilin Xue
  • Yongzhen Li
  • Napat Rujeerapaiboon
    • Categories Linear, Cone and Semidefinite Programming, Robust Optimization, Supply Chain Management Tags , ,

    Motivated by the worldwide Covid-19 vaccine procurement, we study an inventory problem with an advance purchase contract which requires all ordering decisions to be committed at once. In reality, not only the demand is uncertain, but its distribution can also be ambiguous. Hence, we assume that only the mean and the variance are known and … Read more

    Distributional robustness and inequity mitigation in disaster preparedness of humanitarian operations

  • Hongming Li
  • Erick Delage
  • Ning Zhu
  • Michael Pinedo
  • Shoufeng Ma
    • Categories Multi-Criteria Optimization, Robust Optimization, Supply Chain Management Tags , , , ,

    We study a predisaster relief network design problem with uncertain demands. The aim is to determine the prepositioning and reallocation of relief supplies. Motivated by the call of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to leave no one behind, we consider three important practical aspects of humanitarian operations: shortages, equity, … Read more

    Optimal Robust Policy for Feature-Based Newsvendor

  • Luhao Zhang
  • Jincheng Yang
  • Rui Gao
    • Categories Infinite Dimensional Optimization, Robust Optimization, Supply Chain Management Tags , , ,

    We study policy optimization for the feature-based newsvendor, which seeks an end-to-end policy that renders an explicit mapping from features to ordering decisions. Unlike existing works that restrict the policies to some parametric class which may suffer from sub-optimality (such as affine class) or lack of interpretability (such as neural networks), we aim to optimize … Read more

    The probabilistic travelling salesman problem with crowdsourcing

  • Alberto Santini
  • Ana Viana
  • Xenia Klimentova
  • João Pedro Pedroso
    • Categories Stochastic Programming, Supply Chain Management Tags , ,

    We study a variant of the Probabilistic Travelling Salesman Problem arising when retailers crowdsource last-mile deliveries to their own customers, who can refuse or accept in exchange for a reward. A planner must identify which deliveries to offer, knowing that all deliveries need fulfilment, either via crowdsourcing or using the retailer’s own vehicle. We formalise … Read more