Article ID: | iaor20116561 |
Volume: | 133 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 451 |
End Page Number: | 457 |
Publication Date: | Sep 2011 |
Journal: | International Journal of Production Economics |
Authors: | Young Yun Won, Mi Lee Yu, Seok Choi Yong |
Keywords: | control processes, simulation: applications, transportation: general |
In this paper, we deal with an inventory control problem of empty containers in an inland transportation system. In inland container transportation, freights (containers) are transported between terminal and the customer’s location by trucks, trains and barges. Empty containers are an important logistic resource and shipping companies try to operate and manage empty containers efficiently. Because of the trade imbalance between hub ports, empty containers should be periodically repositioned from surplus areas to shortage areas. However, it is not easy to exactly forecast the demand of empty containers, and we therefore need to build an efficient way to reposition the empty containers. In this paper, we consider a shortage area and propose an efficient inventory policy to control empty containers. We assume that demands per unit time are independent and identically distributed random variables. To satisfy the demand of empty containers, we reposition empty containers from other hubs based on the (