CASH FLOW OPTIMIZATION IN DELIVERY SCHEDULING
Abstract The paper examines the inventory routing problem from the perspective of the present value of the cash flow associated with the distribution of a commodity such as propane. We analyze this problem for both deterministic and stochastic customer demands and validate our results on data from a real life distribution operation of propane. The analysis based on the present value of the cash flow indicates that optimization of propane deliveries based on efficiency/cost criteria alone will generate inferior solutions and it would be more advantageous for the company to set deliveries for a large percentage of the customers based on the present value of cash flow. In addition, in the case of stochastic demands, deliveries based on the cash flow consideration will tend to reduce the number of stockouts (i.e. improve both profit and service).
A CONSTRUCTIVE HEURISTIC FOR THE INTEGRATED INVENTORY-DISTRIBUTION PROBLEM
We study the integrated inventory distribution problem which is concerned with multiperiod inventory holding, backlogging, and vehicle routing decisions for a set of customers who receive units of a single item from a depot with infinite supply. We consider an environment in which the demand at each customer is deterministic and relatively small compared to the vehicle capacity, and the customers are located closely such that a consolidated shipping strategy is appropriate. We develop a constructive heuristic to obtain an approximate solution for this NP-hard problem and demonstrate its effectiveness through computational experiments.
Metallurgical Process Engineering
The "material of choice" - steel.- Uprising of China's steel industry.- Process manufacturing industry and process engineering.- Engineering science in steel manufacturing process.- Analysis and integration of metallurgical manufacturing process.- Multi-dimensional mass flow control for metallurgical manufacturing process.- Time factors in steel manufacturing process.-Operating dynamics in the production process of steel plant.- Structure and mode of steel plant.- Steel plant and environment.