Manufacturer and warehouse selection for stable relationships in dynamic wholesaling and location problems

Abstract

Applies the concept of buyer‐seller relationship to long‐term planning of wholesaling operations. Current practices indicate that this kind of relational exchange reduces overall costs more than the traditional market exchange. Aims to help to operationalize this partnership by selecting a stable set of manufacturers and warehouses for an entire planning period. Develops a multi‐period optimization model incorporating constraints necessary for such stable solutions. This model requires a large number of variables and constraints, and is computationally challenging for most practical‐sized problems. Therefore proposes heuristic method to decompose the model into subproblems by partitioning the planning period into blocks of years and then synthesize the subproblem solutions. Such decomposition may also be useful to solve large dynamic location planning problems.

Citation

Tyagi, R. and Das, C. (1995), "Manufacturer and warehouse selection for stable relationships in dynamic wholesaling and location problems", International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 25 No. 6, pp. 54-72. https://doi.org/10.1108/09600039510093276