الفهرس 
Introduction to Stochastic Supply ChainOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 166 |  |  |
| | | from | 166 | | |
Abstract
Supply chain management has recently gained a lot of interest. In their studies,
researchers try to put assumptions that are close to real supply chain networks. In
this research, the problem addressed is a supply chain network of three echelons,
multiple products, of stochastic demand, with inventory accumulation over
multiple planning intervals. A mathematical model was built to find the optimum
decision of operating facilities and distributors. The problem is formulated in
stochastic integer linear programming. The objective is to maximize the expected
profit. The model was proven to be effective solving this problem. Such a problem
was not tackled by many researchers due to its complexity, and big size. Further
studies were made to decrease the size of the problem. It was made possible to
decrease the computational time to about 40% of the original time while obtaining
the same results. This percentage depends on the original size of the problem.
Experiments were carried out to study the effect of different parameters of the
problem on the profit and the service level. Parameters studied were the fixed and
variable costs, as well as the variance of the stochastic demand. The model was
extended to feature bidirectional transshipment among distributors. Allowing
transshipment between distributors has proven to be effective and profitable in
some cases, depending on the three main parameters; the transshipment cost, the
holding cost, and the transportation cost between facilities and distributors. Finally,
the bullwhip effect at facilities was calculated for different cases of transshipment
and inventory. Inventory and transshipment help to decrease the bullwhip effect at
facilities under different scenarios through the same planning interval. On the other
hand, they help to increase the variation in the production rate through different
intervals.