Embotelladoras ARCA Uses Operations Research to Improve Territory Design Plans
Embotelladoras ARCA Uses Operations Research to Improve Territory Design Plans
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DOI：
10.1287/inte.1120.0675
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发表时间：
2013-05
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
J. López-Pérez;R. Z. Ríos-Mercado
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文献类型：
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作者：
J. López-Pérez;R. Z. Ríos-Mercado
Embotelladoras ARCA是一家墨西哥公司，致力于生产，分销和销售可口可乐公司，ARCA和第三方拥有的软饮料品牌。该公司面临的最相关的问题之一是如何将其客户划分为区域，以最有效地处理营销和分销决策。该地域设计还必须满足几个规划要求，例如地域紧凑性、连通性和平衡性，以及与现有设计的相似性。在2009年之前，公司规划者根据他们的经验来定义这些单位，没有使用定量工具，更多地考虑了领土紧凑度标准。这种定义方法导致了一些不受欢迎的问题，包括高度不平衡的地区;也就是说，最终计划在客户数量和总产品需求方面存在很大的差异。在本文中，我们运用运筹学方法来确定配置的领土单位，确保领土平衡方面的客户数量和总的产品需求，同时遵守其他重要的规划要求，并最大限度地提高领土紧凑性。使用这种方法，在保持领土紧凑度的同时，大大改善了领土不平衡问题。我们还强调了这种方法的其他好处。Embotelladoras ARCA已经采用了这个建议的工具来做出设计决策。
Embotelladoras ARCA is a Mexican company dedicated to the production, distribution, and sales of soft drink brands owned by the Coca-Cola Company, ARCA, and third parties. One of the most relevant problems the company faces is how to segment its customers into territories to accommodate the most efficient handling of marketing and distribution decisions. This territory design must also satisfy several planning requirements, such as territory compactness, connectivity, and balancing, and similarity with the existing design. Before 2009, the company planners defined these units based on their experiences, without using quantitative tools, giving more weight to the territory compactness criterion. This method of definition led to a number of undesirable issues, including highly unbalanced territories; that is, the final plans had large disparities in size with respect to both number of customers and total product demand. In this paper, we apply operations research methods to determine configurations of the territorial units that ensure territory balance with respect to both number of customers and total product demand, while complying with other important planning requirements and maximizing territory compactness. Using this methodology has resulted in significant enhancements with respect to the territory imbalance issue while maintaining the level of territory compactness. We also highlight additional benefits of this approach. Embotelladoras ARCA has adopted this proposed tool to make its design decisions.