Design of deterministic point-of-use delivery and storage systems

This paper presents a mathematical model for the optimal design of point-of-use delivery and storage systems under deterministic demand. In a point-of-use system, component parts are delivered to and stored near their consumption points on the factory floor. Designing a system requires locating a number of point-of-use stores on the factory floor, allocating workcenter demands to the stores, and setting inventory levels at each store. Previously, practitioners have used heuristic and spreadsheet-based approaches. The paper includes a numerical example to demonstrate the effectiveness of the model.