Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) have the flexibility to meet the material handling requirements of asynchronous assembly lines. Furthermore, AGVs can select from among alternative paths in accordance with a prescribed lane selection rule, thereby facilitating the use of parallel server...

This paper obtains the optimal routings for intermodal containerized transport from Canada to Mexico. Such traffic is being stimulated by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but the cost and lead times of feasible routes are not well known. We summarize the links and routes to...

Purpose - A program of shipment consolidation (SCL) is the purposeful intervention by management to regularly combine several small shipments so that a larger load may be dispatched on the same vehicle. SCL decisions traditionally have been based upon minimization of total logistics costs...

This article studies the dispatch of consolidated shipments. Orders, following a batch Markovian arrival process, are received in discrete quantities by a depot at discrete time epochs. Instead of immediate dispatch, all outstanding orders are consolidated and shipped together at a later time....

Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methodology is applied to a two-echelon serial inventory/distribution system, consisting of a warehouse and retailer. Different situations, such as deterministic and probabilistic demand, and whether marginal inventory costs are known, are discussed....

Logistics in China -- Electronic Procurement Systems in India: Importance and Impact on Supply Chain Operations -- Use of Third Party Logistics Services: An Asia-Pacific Perspective -- The Greater Mekong Sub-region of Southeast Asia: Improving Logistics Connectivity -- Strategic and Tactical...

Crowdsourced delivery and other sharing economy platforms attract freelance workers by offering them flexibility in scheduling their own work hours. Those platforms, however, have been criticized for the lack of protection they offer workers. Since workers are treated as independent contractors,...

Vendor-managed inventory (VMI) and consignment inventory (CI) are supply-chain sourcing practices between a vendor and customer. VMI allows the vendor to initiate orders on behalf of the customer. This presumably benefits the vendor who can then make replenishment decisions according to her own...

Consider a family of SKUs for which the supplier will offer a quantity discount, according to the aggregate purchases of the product group. Management of those items is based on the modified periodic policy. From the supplier's point of view, what are the optimal parameters (breakpoint and...