Building Sustainable Supply Chains in the Era of e-Commerce
Name
scm2020-gatmaitan-building-sustainable-supply-chains-in-the-era-of-e-commerce-capstone.pdf
Description
Supply Chain Management capstone research project
Size
12.74 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
e670c368abc15acbc64df064faa6b051
Author(s)
Gatmaitan, Christian
Yangali Del Pozo, Lisha
Date Issued
July 24, 2020
Abstract
Consumer preferences are driving changes within the retail space. E-Commerce is growing rapidly and
there are increased pressures on companies to be environmentally friendly, yet still cost-competitive.
Therefore, it is of the utmost importance for retailers to adjust their distribution network to accommodate
these new customer preferences. Four key steps of this process are (1) measuring the current capacity of
the system, (2) forecasting future demand, (3) adjusting capacity in order to meet this forecasted demand
while minimizing cost, and (4) quantifying the environmental impact of each adjustment.
Our research focuses on applying these four steps to Coppel, a Mexican retail chain. A time study and
capacity analysis were completed to understand current-state capacity. An annual forecast was created using
the Holt-Winter Method. This forecast was used as an input for our developed Mixed Integer Linear
Program (MILP) that minimizes cost while still meeting customer demand. Finally, the Greenhouse Gas
(GHG) method was used to quantify the environmental impact of each cost-reduction measure that the
MILP suggests. Our approach reduced the processing cost per unit for Coppel by 4.8% for a total savings
of $126M when compared to their previous current-state. This result verifies that our four-step approach
can be utilized to reduce cost and therefore yield higher profits for companies in the retail space.
Subjects
Demand Planning
Network Design
Sustainability
Persistent DSpace Link
