A representation scheme for integrated production and outbound distribution models

The integrated problem of production and distribution scheduling is relevant for both industry and academia. Due to this relevance there has been an increasing body of literature in the last decade proposing a wide variety of problem solving methods. Almost every author presents algorithms based on models with individual parameters. Thus, the application of algorithms given in the literature in different models is not possible without a detailed analysis of model characteristics. We provide a detailed representation scheme for integrated production and outbound distribution models based on a review of relevant literature. This representation scheme is tested for robustness of the representation scheme developed. This representation scheme is useful to give analysts an overview of model characteristics in order to assess if a provided method fits to the problem under consideration and if results of different approaches are comparable.