Synchronizing production and transportation schedules

This paper examines whether it is cost-effective to synchronize production and transportation schedules on a production network. The network considered consists of one origin and many destinations. The origin produces parts that are shipped directly to each destination. Trade-offs between production set-up, freight transportation, and inventory costs on the network are analyzed, and total costs are compared for synchronized and independent schedules. The paper focuses on a simple production system, which can be modeled analytically and which allows the basic issues in synchronizing schedules to be addressed. Results suggest that cost savings from synchronization can be sufficiently large to warrant further research into more realistic albeit more complex production systems.