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Designing A New Logistics Network

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1. Question #1.
Part A: Describe how you would design a new logistics network consisting of only a single warehouse.
To design a single-warehouse network, I would need to determine the optimal location of the warehouse, its overall capacity, and the amount of space that will be allocated for each SKU or product. A warehouse that is not strategically located in an equidistance manner to each region may cause higher than normal transportation costs. If capacity is too low, inbound shipments could be delayed and service levels will decline.
In addition, I would design a strategic transportation plan that coordinates inbound and outbound shipments to reduce transportation costs and improve service levels. The warehouse will be designed …show more content…

Location of all retail outlets/customers, existing warehouses, and manufacturing plants
2. Information on products: number of SKUs, product families, product sizes and volumes
3. Annual customer demand, by regional zone and by total aggregation
4. Service level requirements of each retail outlet/customer
5. Proposed location of the new warehouse and transportation distances from the new location to each retail outlet/customer
6. Transportation rates by available modes (i.e., rail, motor, etc.)
7. Fixed costs for running a central warehouse/distribution to determine optimal capacity versus cost
Part D: What are the advantages and disadvantages of the newly suggested distribution strategy relative to the existing distribution strategy? The advantages of a centralized warehouse is higher service levels and lower inventory holding costs due to aggregating customer demand and pooling risk. That is, if customer demand is high in one region and lower in another, there will be no need to hold excess inventory in a regional warehouse; the variation in demand will balance out and reduce the requirements for excess inventory. Additionally, the fixed costs of maintaining one central warehouse/distribution center will be lower than five regional warehouses. The disadvantages are higher outbound transportation costs. Even with a strategic warehouse location, such as Kentucky, there will bound to be retail outlets farther than others, such as San

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