Optimizing Linkages in Multistage Production/Distribution Systems

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This research grant provides funding for the development of new mathematical decision models to enable complex multistage production and distribution systems to more effectively and efficiently respond to diverse individual customer needs. These decision models will address the optimal coordination of operations planning between distinct stages in production and distribution systems. The modeling and solution methods will stress the value and importance of various critical dimensions of individual customer demand attributes and of material supply flexibility. Optimization-based solution methods will be developed for solving these large-scale decision problems, which account for the economic costs and system constraints of multiple inter-related stages that work together to efficiently deliver consumer goods and services. The models and solution methods will be tested and validated with an emphasis on empirically demonstrating their value to organizations that operate and participate in large-scale production and distribution systems.The results of this research will provide organizations with new approaches to operations planning and management that more effectively and efficiently match their operations capabilities to a broad and diverse set of customer demands. The resulting models will demonstrate ways in which firms can achieve economic material supply flexibility in order to provide individually customized output while serving mass markets. The solution methods that will be developed for these models will help to overcome significant operations planning complexities faced by many firms, thus providing the potential to create substantial economic value for a broad range of organizations. The associated modeling, analysis, and algorithmic development will also contribute to advances in applied optimization theory and large-scale problem solving.