Selecting the location of distribution centre in logistics operations: A conceptual framework and case study

Abstract

Ab stractThis pa per pres ents the out comes of a study of the choice of lo ca tion for distri bu tion cen tres in lo gis tics op er a tions. A con cep tual frame work of lo cation se lec tion for dis tri bu tion cen tre is worked out through three main stages. At the first stage, a gen eral geo graph ical area for dis tri bu tion cen tre is iden ti fied based on the Cen tre of Grav ity prin ci ple, tak ing into con sid eration socio-eco nomic fac tors. The sec ond stage of the se lec tion pro cess involves the iden ti fi ca tion of al ter na tive lo ca tions for the dis tri bu tion cen tre and the air ports and sea ports to be used for in bound and out bound cargo flows within the de fined gen eral geo graph ical area. The third stage fo cuses on spe cific site se lec tion among the iden ti fied al ter na tive lo ca tions for the dis tri bu tion cen tre based on the quan ti ta tive ap proach. This in volves a math e mat i cal model which aims to op ti mise ei ther the to tal dis tri bu tion cost or the in te gra tion of to tal dis tance trans port with given rel e vant vol umes of cargo. In or der to il lus trate the con cep tual frame work, a case study of a logis tics ser vice pro vider will be pro vided. Data from the case study proved that the con cep tual frame work for se lec tion is valid and can be of value to lo gis tics com pa nies in their op er a tions and man age ment.

Competitiveness of Arabian gulf ports from shipping lines’ perspectives: Case of Sohar port in Oman

“…The use of container ports as sea transportation is valuable due to the convenient facilities and the competitive rates of transport when compared with other transport modes. Moreover, other advantages of sea transportation (Van Thai & Grewal, 2005). The dynamic logistics and supply chain activities need to increase the international relationships among markets nodes (Bourlakis, Melewar, Yeo, Roe & Dinwoodie, 2011 Some authors have pointed out some factors that impact port selection (Gi-Tae et al, 2014).…”

“…The concept of port competitiveness which influences shipping lines selection of specific port is relatively recent as a research issue although there were several studies that examined the relationships between some selected factors and the port preferences from the shipping lines perspectives (Wiegmans et al, 2008;Van Thai & Grewal, 2005;Bourlakis et al, 2011;Gi-Tae et al, 2014;Tammela et al, 2008;Tongzon, 2009;Jie et al, 2015). This concept is still difficult to understand because of its multidimensional nature.…”

ELECTRE I Based Relevance Decision-Makers Feedback to the Location Selection of Distribution Centers

“…Nature of the Problem. Much of the literature has studied the problem of selecting DCs' location under a certain and a deterministic environment [9,11,12,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. This kind of problem was characterized as static and deterministic, and parameters are known and fixed [33].…”

“…In this category of methods, there is more work compared to the other two categories (cited above). Among these approaches, we cite the conceptual framework based on Adjusted Kuehn-Hamburger model, the method based on Grid model and ELECTRE [13], the Fixed-Charge Facility Location model [14], the Genetic algorithm [15][16][17], the Bilevel Programming model [18], the method based on Center of Gravity principle [19], the Binary Integer Programming [20], the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm [21][22][23], the DNA Artificial Fish Swarm algorithm [24], the Firefly algorithm [25], the method based on the Genetic algorithm, and AHP [26].…”

Decision making background for the location of inland terminals

“…Input values necessary for constructing the matrix H from (13) and vector B from (14) in ELECTRE method are given by Table 7 and Table 8 respectively.…”