Article ID: | iaor20081621 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 43 |
Issue: | 2 |
Start Page Number: | 90 |
End Page Number: | 111 |
Publication Date: | Mar 2007 |
Journal: | Transportation Research. Part E, Logistics and Transportation Review |
Authors: | Kingsman Brian G., Chan Chi Kin |
Keywords: | distribution, supply & supply chains |
This paper proposes a coordinated single-vendor multi-buyer supply chain model by synchronizing delivery and production cycles. The synchronization is achieved by scheduling the actual delivery days of the buyers and coordinating them with the vendor's production cycle whilst allowing the buyers to choose their own lot sizes and order cycles. A mathematical model for our proposed coordination is developed and analyzed. The results of our three numerical examples show that the synchronized cycles policy works better than independent optimization as well as restricting buyers to adopt a common order cycle.