CTL Globe
Thesis/Capstone

Dealing with Complexities in Digital Supply Chain

Publication Date
The digital supply chain is rapidly evolving, putting greater pressure on suppliers to adopt to the dynamic demands of the buyers. This paper explores how supply chain complexities and buyer-supplier relationships as a complex adaptive system interact with an integrated and enacted external environment and drive the key supply chain...
CTL Globe
Thesis/Capstone

Eliminating Last-Mile Inefficiencies in the Trucking Industry

Publication Date
Pilot Freight Services, traditionally a bulk cargo freight forwarder in the US, is in the process of expanding their business to provide last-mile delivery (LMD) services. This capstone project helps Pilot improve the performance of their LMD operations through higher visibility and elimination of efficiencies. First, an understanding of Pilot’s...
CTL Globe
Thesis/Capstone

Evaluating Inventory Risk Pooling Strategy for Multi-Echelon Distribution Network

Publication Date
Rising inventory costs is an ongoing challenge for any firm. These costs are of special significance to retail firms like Coppel, whose inventory investments are typically high and margins are slim. Inventory risk pooling is a strategy that is often ignored but can help bring significant cost reduction without affecting...
CTL Globe
Thesis/Capstone

Facility and Routing Decisions in Truck-Drone Distribution

Publication Date
Drones have the potential to be major players in the field of last-mile delivery, especially with the rise of e-commerce. However, they face several technological and regulatory restrictions for large-scale implementation. Combining drones with traditional ground delivery vehicles can bridge this gap while achieving significant improvements in distribution cost and...
CTL Globe
Thesis/Capstone

How to Plan and Schedule for Profit: An Integrated Model and Application for Complex Factory Operations

Publication Date
In the manufacturing industry, short-term production planning and scheduling requires multiple trade-offs to account for service targets, capacity utilization, setup, on-time delivery, costs and profit. If many SKUs flow in the same production line, the challenge is how to plan and schedule in such a way that an optimal trade-off...
CTL Globe
Thesis/Capstone

Improving the Cash Availability of Small Firms in Latin America via Better Inventory Management

Publication Date
In Latin America, micro, small, and medium firms represent about 99% of businesses and more than 70% of employment, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Despite their number, these firms face a low survival rate: per the Small Business Administration, only 50% are still in business after...
CTL Globe
Thesis/Capstone

Inbound Logistics Optimization

Publication Date
The intrinsic competitive nature of the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry have made it a priority for companies to maximize profitability by aggressive cost-cutting measures in the context of growing material cost, surging labor expenses and increasing demand for product customization. While exploring optimization opportunities in outbound logistics management, which...
CTL Globe
Thesis/Capstone

IoT-Based Inventory Tracking in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Publication Date
Inventory visibility has been a primary concern for corporate supply chains for decades. Utilizing inventory location and time data is particularly important for pharmaceutical companies, as is the sponsor, that have an ethical and legal responsibility to protect consumers from risky pharmaceutical products in the market. Until recently, pharmaceutical companies...
CTL Globe
Thesis/Capstone

Optimizing Satellite Locations for a Multi-Echelon Last Mile Distribution Network to utilize Alternative Delivery Vehicles for Last Mile Delivery

Publication Date
The growing urban population over the past few years has created many challenges for last mile distribution, such as traffic congestion, pollution, and lack of parking space availability. With the advent of e-commerce industry, the volumes for last mile delivery are growing consistently. As firms struggle to provide competitive delivery...
CTL Globe
Thesis/Capstone

Right Sizing Safety Stock and Effectively Managing Inventory Using Forecastability

Publication Date
In a commodity consumer product business, such as bottled water, the customer has the power. Therefore, the business incurs whatever cost necessary to meet demand. To reduce the cost of fulfilling demand and of stockout, businesses must thoughtfully set inventory safety stock levels to compensate for potential spikes in demand...
CTL Globe
Thesis/Capstone

Using Machine Learning Approaches to Improve Long-Range Demand Forecasting

Publication Date
Achieving an accurate long-range forecast is a challenge many companies face due to the uncertainty in anticipating demand several years out. Since companies make strategic decisions based on these forecasts – such as long-term investments and supply and capacity planning – it is critical that the long-range forecast be as...
CTL Globe
Thesis/Capstone

A Forecasting Face-Off for Oil and Gas Spare Parts

Publication Date
Spare parts demand forecasting is a key activity for asset intensive industries, but it is challenging due to the underlying demand characteristics. Demand is characterized by periods of zero demand arrivals; and the size of the order is variable with large, unexpected spikes. Schlumberger, an oil and gas service manufacturer...
CTL Globe
Thesis/Capstone

A Time Series Model for the China-to-U.S. Ocean Freight Pricing

Publication Date
Ocean freight forwarding on the China-to-U.S. lane is a key service that C.H. Robinson, the sponsoring company, offers to the firm’s international clients. The rates on that lane have experienced volatility in the past few years which led to uncertainties to the future pricing trend. A statistically predictive model that...
CTL Globe
Thesis/Capstone

Dynamic Trade Policy and Supply Chain Design Within the Oil and Gas Industry

Publication Date
Trade policies of the late 2010 decade are characterized by a unique combination of severity, shorter lifespan, and greater frequency. Supply chain leaders within the oil and gas industry may not recognize the full range of responses they might take when responding to this new dynamic. This report will do...
CTL Globe
Thesis/Capstone

Exploring Carbon Offsets for Freight Transportation Decarbonization

Publication Date
Carbon offsets present a mechanism to leverage corporate sustainability commitments to fund fleet renewal programs, decommissioning aging trucks and replacing them with greener vehicles. This study evaluates the feasibility of this approach from a financial and logistical perspective. First, the demand for transport carbon offsets is forecasted using inputs from...
CTL Globe
Paper

Omnichannel logistics network design with integrated customer preference for deliveries and returns

Publication Date
This paper proposes a mixed integer program (MIP) for the network design problem of a parcel carrier that manages online orders from omnichannel retailers. The network includes several types of facilities, such as city distribution centers, intermediary depots, parcel offices, as well as collect channel points, such as automated parcel...
Transportation Research Part A Logo
Paper

Quantifying the impact of urban road networks on the efficiency of local trips

Publication Date
City-level circuity factors have been introduced to quantify and compare the directness of vehicular travel across different cities. While these city-level factors help to improve the quality of distance approximation functions for city-wide vehicle movements, more granular factors are needed to obtain accurate shortest path distance approximations for last-mile transportation...
CTL Globe
Paper

The value of physical distribution flexibility in serving dense and uncertain urban markets

Publication Date
Urban last-mile distribution in emerging economies suffers from unique levels of operational complexity, largely due to the prevailing dominance of the highly fragmented traditional retail channel. To support companies in strategically designing efficient urban distribution networks in such uncertain market environments, we propose a large-scale stochastic mixed-integer linear programming model...
CTL Globe
Paper

A truck and drones model for last-mile delivery: A mathematical model and heuristic approach

Publication Date
We present a mathematical formulation and a heuristic solution approach for the optimal planning of delivery routes in a multi-modal system combining truck and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operations. In this system, truck and UAV operations are synchronized, i.e., one or more UAVs travel on a truck, which serves as...
Transportation Research: Part E logo
Paper

Design and evaluation of a multi-trip delivery model with truck and drones

Publication Date
We extend the Traveling Repairman Problem (TRP) by assuming a single truck which can stop at customer locations and launch drones multiple times from each stop location to serve customers. The problem is mathematically modeled, several bound analyses are conducted to determine the maximum possible improvements in customer waiting times...
disaster recovery dashboard
Presentation

Webinar: Strengthening Supply Chain Resilience - Research Briefing

Publication Date
Resilient supply chains are crucial to maintaining the consistent delivery of goods and services to the American people. The modern economy has made supply chains more interconnected than ever, while also expanding both their range and fragility. In the third quarter of 2017, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria revealed some...
cover circular supply chains
Report

Closing the Loop - Toward a Circular Supply Chain

Publication Date

The MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) convened participants from industry, non-profits, and academia to discuss circular supply chains during the December 2019 roundtable.

 

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Transportation Research Part A Logo
Paper

Characterizing urban last-mile distribution strategies in mature and emerging e-commerce markets

Publication Date
E-retailers and other companies participating in the e-commerce supply chain are developing a variety of strategies for last-mile e-commerce distribution in urban areas. These strategies must account for a number of elements of local context which can be particularly challenging in emerging markets. Urban last-mile distribution strategies that are specifically...
Working paper cover
Working Paper

Elephants or Goldfish?: An Empirical Analysis of Carrier Reciprocity in Dynamic Freight Markets

Publication Date
Dynamic macroeconomic conditions and non-binding truckload freight contracts enable both shippers and carriers to behave opportunistically. We present an empirical analysis of carrier reciprocity in the US truckload transportation sector to demonstrate whether consistent performance and fair pricing by shippers when markets are in their favor result in maintained primary...
CTL Globe
Report

Data Management: Preparing for Machine Learning

Publication Date

On October 15–16, 2019, the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics hosted representatives from 18 organizations for a roundtable on data management for machine learning in the supply chain. Six sessions focused on: 1) the importance of data, 2) managing organizational transformation, 3) organizational data governance, 4) data collection, 5) data wrangling, and 6) data visualization. Each session began with a short presentation followed by wide-ranging discussions. To encourage candor, statements have not been attributed to named organizations.