Increased competition in business environments requires that firms provide not only quality but also timely service with minimal cost. Offering a delivery-time guarantee may increase the demand for a product or service, or allow the firm to charge a price premium. This paper investigates the...

Consider a supply chain with one vendor and multiple buyers. That vendor not only manufactures the goods demanded, but also transports them by its own fleet of trucks to buyers that are densely dispersed in a distribution zone. The buyers are sensitive to both price and delivery-time guarantee....

Most studies on supply chain management have taken an "inventory" point of view: The chain, supplier--manufacturer--majormanufacturer, is thus analyzed as a series of production-inventory decisions. Although correct, that approach neglects issues on the transportation between nodes, thereby...

This research compares the logistics systems of Asia and Europe and categorises them into distinct levels of logistics excellence. First, the context in Asia and in Europe is summarized. Then, attributes of a world‐class logistics system are proposed. By applying cluster analysis to data from...

Decision analysis in management science employs concepts from economics such as utility functions and indifference curves. A utility function U models the “satisfaction” that a customer obtains from logistics service. Here U depends on two attributes (lead time, fill rate) whose values more...

Presents a multiple‐objective mathematical programming model to co‐ordinate logistics decisions with those on the interface between the production and marketing departments. The model can help decide on an overall budget to request from senior management for logistics and these interfaces,...

Just‐in‐time (JIT) production has been a subject of considerable research in the past few years. The Japanese were the first to actually use JIT systems rather than the traditional economic order quantity inventory system or the more recent method of Material Requirements Planning (MRP)....

Two lot‐sizing heuristics are proposed for deterministic time‐varying demands, a case commonly encountered in requirements planning systems. The first heuristic simplifies the stopping rule of the Silver‐Meal (SM) heuristic so that difficult cases may be solved nearly optimally. The second...

Today, many Canadian firms are seeking additional profits through sales to the European Community (EC). Successful market development in Europe will first require good contacts to obtain the best distribution channels. Access to the EC can hence be complicated through lack of knowledge of...