For our project sponsor, a leading global Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) company, the goal goes beyond simply meeting complex demands. The focus is on optimizing inventory management strategies to balance the crucial trade-off between avoiding stockouts and minimizing the costs associated with excess inventory. Our project explores machine learning's...
Rising inventory costs and lower inventory turnover due to long lead times and supply/demand volatility have led to a need for our sponsor company, Tempur Sealy International, to reassess its sourcing, inventory, and deployment strategy for its adjustable base category. We develop a linear program optimization model capable of analyzing...
More than 85 million tons of cardboard waste are created annually, with most ending up in landfills. This capstone project aims to develop a mathematical optimization model to help last-mile delivery companies reduce their carbon dioxide (CO2) footprint by collecting and reusing cardboard cartons. Specifically, the optimization model suggests from...
In the oil and gas industry, the fluctuations of semiconductor component delivery time significantly impact Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) production planning. The discrepancies between the supplier quoted lead time and actual delivery lead time present a substantial challenge, as the sponsor company`s MRP system lacks a robust safety stock...
In the U.S. trucking industry, freight brokerages act as vital intermediaries between shippers and carriers, but they face financial risks due to write-offs from unpaid services. Despite the recognized importance of mitigating these financial risks, the sponsoring company does not currently have a predictive model to assess the likelihood and...
This capstone project addressed the challenges faced by GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) supply chain in managing sequential delays, essential for ensuring timely healthcare delivery in the pharmaceutical industry. The key objectives included pinpointing planned dates within GSK’s system and developing a robust machine learning model to predict sequential delays accurately. Through an...
Newell Brands, a conglomerate with a diverse product portfolio, has traditionally relied on financial metrics for SKU rationalization. Now, they are seeking a SKU rationalization strategy for “Pen” portfolio to eliminate SKUs that add more complexity to the Bill of Material (BOM) with least value creation. How can Newell Brands...
Anticipating fluctuations in Less-than-Truckload (LTL) volume presents challenges for shippers, carriers, and freight brokers alike. This capstone addresses this issue by developing a predictive model for LTL volume, leveraging insights gained from the cyclical nature of demand shifts between Truckload and LTL freight. Through analyzing various truckload metrics, this study...
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics states that food and beverage manufacturers have experienced annual 0.5% decreases in labor productivity and annual 7% increases in unit labor costs since 2019 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2023). These statistics underscore a growing inefficiency in the manufacturing and distribution processes of food...
Consumer demand for frozen products from The J.M. Smucker Company has grown dramatically over recent years, driving an evident need to increase total ship output. The overarching problem that we attempted to solve in this project was how to maximize the amount of a specific frozen product loaded onto trailers...
Truckload procurement practices vary widely across industry and firm spend levels. This research utilizes a framework to identify shipper behaviors that represent state-of-the-practice in truckload procurement while also highlighting shipper behaviors that represent state-of-the-art. The presented anlaysis uses data collected from 1) a survey of 300 shippers and 2) semi-structured...
The foodservice distribution industry in the United States is projected to experience a 40% growth from 2022 to 2025. As the industry expands, an increasing number of companies are adopting an omnichannel supply chain strategy. In this context, our sponsor company, a large U.S. foodservice distribution company, aims to optimize...
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the vulnerabilities of supply chain systems, and companies must take Supply Chain Risk Management seriously to build resilience against future unknown disruptions. However, measuring risk and its impact is challenging due to data availability, interpretation of different types of risks, and complex product-supplier networks. Xylem...
Stockouts present significant challenges for Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies, adversely affecting profitability and customer satisfaction. This Capstone report investigates key drivers causing Case Fill Rate (CFR) to fall below target levels and identifies the best model for predicting future CFR for the sponsor company. By utilizing hypothesis testing and...
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, biotech companies faced an unprecedented challenge to develop vaccines within a very short time. The revolutionary nature of vaccines has expedited their development and deployment, but their association with ultra-cold storage and transportation poses challenges for equitable distribution. As the world approaches normalcy...
Trends toward patient-centric deliveries in the pharmaceutical industry pose a challenge for integration of sustainable supply chain design. This patient-centricity entails more distributed demand, smaller shipments, and more frequent deliveries. Our research utilizes scenario planning for quantification of CO2e and taxation within a pharmaceutical distribution network located in Brazil, where...
Our sponsor company, a leading fast-moving consumer goods corporation in the Indian Subcontinent (ISC), faces ongoing challenges in forecasting the volatile demand in this region. Currently, company’s demand planning relies heavily on human judgment, resulting in persistent inaccuracies and biases. This capstone develops a standardized and quantitative demand forecast methodology...
Our project sponsor, a major third-party logistics provider in Japan, experienced a severe disruption that destroyed one of their primary distribution centers for a specific industry. This disruption led to increased lead times, degraded service levels, higher logistics costs, and the loss of a client. Consequently, our research focused on...
This project sought to address critical gaps in the extended supply chain network of the sponsor company by evaluating the efficacy of establishing a communication protocol with upstream suppliers to detect and mitigate supply chain disruptions. Leveraging an agent-based simulation model, the study examined what supply chain elements should be...
This paper explores the complexities of temperature-sensitive food supply chains and the role of third-party logistics (3PL) providers in managing them. Specifically, we partner with the world's second-largest cold chain 3PL provider to establish a dynamic Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) process for their warehousing services. In this project, we...
The truckload market in the United States is large, fragmented, and highly competitive. Shippers utilize routing guides to manage and tender shipments to carriers. This research examines how the macro market characteristics and micro shipper characteristics affect routing guide performance. Specifically, each key market area to key market area lane...
As warehouse operations grow in complexity, many organizations turn to digital twins to increase their performance capabilities. Digital twins are virtual replicas of physical entities and their interactions with one another. The technologies in a digital twin capture real-time data to support improvements and decision making. This project focuses on...
As concerns around climate change increase, companies have been more eager to adopt environmental sustainability goals. The focus of this research is to provide insights into how a company’s position in the overall supply chain impacts their decisions to set environmental sustainability goals and initiatives. In this report, we take...
Logistics and transportation companies face a significant challenge with empty miles, which results in costs without generating revenue. To tackle this issue, we explored two potential strategies: one involves generating revenue by collaborating with external companies, while the other involves adopting backhauling strategies to identify potential loads within the network...
Effective and efficient inventory management is today more crucial than ever. Three factors drive its importance: (i) the ever-increasing complexity of bills of materials, causing firms to dedicate a large part of their spending to their supply base; (ii) unprecedented uncertainty, making inventory indispensable for business survival; and (iii) an...
