Inventory management optimization : a case study of Amazon supply chain
department or school: Business, Sauder School of
department or school: Operations and Logistics (OPLOG), Division of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Aghababaei, Bahareh
issued: 2024-08-02T21:39:34Z
issued: 2024
related degree: Master of Science in Business Administration - MScB
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: One of the unique characteristics of online retail is the ability to ship items to customers from different fulfillment centers. This causes interdependence between fulfillment centers and creates new challenges in inventory management. Hence, this thesis investigates inventory management decisions in online retail, focusing on the initial stocking of fulfillment centers, their inventory levels, and order fulfillment processes. The problem is formulated as a dynamic integer program, with the objective of minimizing the sum of receiving, holding, and shipping costs while satisfying demand and capacity constraints. The large scale of the problem arises from the size of the fulfillment centers, the number of items, and the number of demand points. We propose a large-scale solution algorithm that aggregates the three sets of items, warehouses, and customers. The algorithm solves the aggregated problem with an exact solution that is tractable in size and then disaggregates the solution through three hierarchical disaggregation stages using a Greedy algorithm to address the NP-hardness of the problem. We develop a theoretical bound on the optimality gap caused by aggregation method. The numerical examples demonstrate that the large-scale algorithm is a computationally efficient approach which produce low-cost solutions for medium-sized clusters compared to the optimal model. Additionally, we also study the impact of key factors, including cost parameters and variations in item sizes on the optimality gap.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/88864
note: Inventory Management Optimization: A Case Study of Amazon Supply Chain by Bahareh Aghababaei A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Transportation and Logistics) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) July 2024 © Bahareh Aghababaei, 2024 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Inventory Management Optimization: A Case Study of Amazon Supply Chain submitted by Bahareh Aghababaei in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Business Administration in Transportation and Logistics Examining Committee: Tamar Cohen-Hillel, Assistant Professor, Operations and Logistics, Sauder School of Business, UBC Business S pervi or Harish Krishnan, Professor, Operations and Logistics, Sauder School of Business, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Julia Yan, Assistant Professor, Operations and Logistics, Sauder School of Business, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Ning Nan, Associate Professor, Accounting and Information Systems, Sauder School of Business, UBC Additional Examiner iii Abstract One of the unique characteristics of online retail is the ability to ship items to customers from different fulfillment centers. This causes interdependence between fulfillment centers and creates new challenges in inventory management. Hence, this thesis investigates inventory management decisions in online retail, focusing on the initial stocking of fulfillment centers, their inventory levels, and order fulfillment processes. The problem is formulated as a dynamic integer program, with the objective of minimizing the sum of receiving, holding, and shipping costs while satisfying demand and capacity constraints. The large scale of the problem arises from the size of the fulfillment centers, the number …
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2024-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0444986
language: eng
degree discipline: Business Administration - Transportation and Logistics
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Cohen-Hillel, Tamar
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88864