Designing a Logistics Network Consisting of Only One Warehouse

The transportation and logistics company is a fast growing industry, and it is very competitive. Many companies invest heavily in the transport and logistics company to ensure the flow of goods from the producer to the consumer market. A good flow of products to the consumers provides growth in a country. The logistics companies deal with the planning and coordination of the transportation and delivery of the goods. In 2015, the U.S earned $1.48 trillion, which was approximately 8% of the annual gross domestic product (GDP) (U.S Logistics Industry-Statistics and Facts, 2017). Many firms, both multinational and local, have tried to find solutions to the underlying problems in the transportation and Logistics industry to ensure good movement of goods from producer to consumer market.

In addition, I would design a strategic transportation plan that coordinates inbound and outbound shipments to reduce transportation costs and improve service levels. The warehouse will be designed

(Bowersox, D.J., Closs, D.J., and Cooper, M.B. (2010). Supply Chain Logistics Management. (3rd Edition) New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

A fundamental part of society since the beginning of time has been the trade of information, cash, and physical goods between at least two separate parties. Whether it is amongst consumers, businesses, or between a business and a consumer, it has always existed in some form. As time passes, our knowledge and technology have advanced therefore creating a stronger supply chain process. A basic logistic service, a means of transportation and storing are what enable trade. In order to have an effective supply chain process, the supporting needs need to be accessible and effective for all parties involved. In the book Logistics Clusters by Yossi Sheffi, he thoroughly explains the current

Due to standardized containerization, intermodal transportation emerged to effectively maneuver geographical constraints for timely deliveries. In this new system, integrated transport modes act in a specific sequence to ensure cargo is delivered door to door. Multiple networks of distribution centers linked to terminals were designed to penetrate a big portion of productive areas (Rodrigue, Comtois, & Slack, 2006). Customers no longer needed to have defined routes of cargo movement. Instead, they only needed to worry about the time of delivery and costs of shipment.

Transportation is at the centre of logistics as it represents the physical movement of materials between points in a supply chain. High customer expectations and little tolerance for inadequate performance create a competitive environment for operating a fleet, which forces fleet managers to achieve high levels of reliability and cost-efficiency (Peter Mbuthia Gitahi, Dr

In today’s world, competence is taking on new dimensions. The ability to compete is being determined by the degree of responsiveness to customers & key issues handling. How fast you deliver the goods/ products, what the price paid by customers & what value customer is getting throughout the service is considered in a schematic & ordered way. Markets are quick demanding & customization of each logistics activities is essential for each customer, & has become the essential factor in logistics management.

3.3 Distributed Network Type Virtual Logistics Organization Structure Distributed network type virtual logistics organization structure is shown in figure 3. From the figure, we can see that managers take the logistics basic activities to external forces. The organization core consists of cost control center and information center of the alliance which conposes of third-party logistics enterprise, carries out design, organization, surveillance and control directed at logistics activities. Non-assets logistics service is better at enhancing profit ability and profit speed than assers logistce service. Investigation and study going deep into manufcturing enterprise is in favor of realizing the co-operation with manufcturing enterprises from strategic level. This kind of structure is mini-scale, not hardware facilities, but have advanced logistics management technology and information technology. It can help manufcturing enterprises working out marketing plan, transportation plan, order plan, production plan; even to carry out reforming enterprise

For the greater good of the environment, is upgrading of companies fleets from older combustive trucks to environmentally friendly vehicles. Also, reducing the return trip back with empty trailers, box cars, and ships, companies will work with other parts of the world and other companies to coordinate transportation with third party logistics. Designing a pack that will utilize such items are cardboard boxes, shredded paper or recyclable paper for support, and minimum marking on the packaging to make a better recyclable and environmental safe product. Diversion of hub-and-spoke logistics network structured through a source allocated that will give a diverse method and points to most paths and defining routing system that

Even though the above considerations of raw material, labour, labour market or power have a primary influence on site selection, often more than one location would satisfy the primary need. This permits selection among the alternatives, the one that represents the most advantageous utilization of costs involved for providing the warehousing system while maintaining the desired quality of customer service. The total costs involved are made up of the cost of transporting all inputs required from their respective sources, the cost of transporting outputs to the markets at the various locations and the cost of providing the warehousing facilities that have been or are to be acquired. The behavior of these considerations may be different and opposite with respect to location. Finding the least cost combination will require the trading off one castigatory of cost from another. That is, a higher transportation cost will have to be accepted to realize a proportionately greater reduction in storage systems. Thus choosing the most economical location and sizes for distribution warehouses is not a simple task. It may require the use of linear

SCM can be divided into three main groups: purchase, manufacture, and transport (Thomas et al., 1996). The focus is on transportation. There are different modes of transportation. These modes of transportation fall under three basic types and they are: land (road, rail and pipelines), water (shipping) and air. Transportation plays a connective role among the several steps that result in the conversion of resources into useful goods for the ultimate consumer. It is the planning of all these functions and sub-functions into a system of goods movement in order to minimize cost and maximize service to the customers that constitutes the concept of business logistics. The system, once it’s put in place, must be effectively managed (Fair & Williams, 1981). What are the advantages and disadvantages of these modes of transportation in logistics?

Optimizing the performance of a given logistics network begins by gaining insights into the specific attributes of a given hub and its related dependencies over time. Using constraint-based modeling many freight forwarders, 3rd party logistics providers and services providers who rely on multi-modal transportation strategies are using hubs to define optimal freight loads and mode-based delivery (Schmidberger, Bals, Hartmann, Jahns, 2009). By modeling a supply chain to these specific aspects, including the use of hubs to optimize overall performance, global logistics providers including DHL have the option of further fine-tuning each aspect of their business model, using the aggregation and re-routing

Design for logistics is a series of concepts in the field of supply chain management involving product and design approaches that help to control logistics costs and increase customer service levels. The concepts include the three key components, Economic packaging and transportation, Concurrent and parallel processing, and Standardization.

Technology development enables the application of transshipment (e.g.,transportation among retailers) to achieve those goals. In this way, by pooling their inventories retailers are able to lower necessary inventory levels system-widely and improve their service levels at the same time. In this paper, the optimization of the transshipment policy is an important part to be considered.

When it comes to needs of transportation, the companies need first look at their inventory management and see what the best fit for their transportation needs is. This paper is a review of Multi-echelon Inventory Control with Integrated Shipment Decisions by Olof Stenius. In a three-part study conducted at the division of Production Management in the Department of Industrial Management and Logistics, at Lund University, the researchers put together three scenarios on how inventory management helped guide decision making on the use of intermodal transportation versus single mode transportation. The studies, titled Sustainable Multi-echelon Inventory Control with