Computers & Chemical Engineering, Vol.27, No.7, 927-949, 2003
Application of dispersion algorithms to supply chain optimisation
In recent years, supply chain optimisation has attracted attention that hitherto was focussed on more local issues such as optimisation of specific plant operations, individual logistic activities of distribution/routing and inventory management. Addressing this problem is a challenge not only from an optimisation perspective but also from the stand point of addressing and modeling important trade-offs. A supply chain problem consisting of production planning and distribution scheduling in two tiers is presented in this paper. A decomposition of the overall problem into aggregate production planning and 2-echelon distribution scheduling is proposed. The two individual problems are solved by applying customised dispersion algorithms on graphs that represent their constraints and objectives in the from of connections between and weights of its vertices. Results are presented for an industrial case study making comparisons with ad-hoc methods for these individual problems.