Supply chain management in apparel industry: A transshipment problem with time constraints

Abstract

Supply chain management is one of the main sources of competitive advantage for companies. As a useful tool for inventory and transportation management in supply chains, transshipment points provide an effective mechanism for correcting discrepancies between demand and available inventory. This study aims to model the transshipment problem of a company in the apparel industry with multiple subcontractors and customers, and a transshipment depot in between. Unlike a typical transshipment problem that considers only the total cost of transportation, our model also considers the supplier lead times and the customer due dates in the system and it can be used for both supplier selection and timely distribution planning. The proposed model can also be adapted easily by other companies in the industry.