Local Search in Combinatorial Optimization
Local Search in Combinatorial Optimization
A survey of very large-scale neighborhood search techniques
Discrete Applied Mathematics
Models for Supply Chains in E-Business
Management Science
Handbook of Quantitative Supply Chain Analysis: Modeling in the E-Business Era (International Series in Operations Research & Management Science)
The value of postponing online fulfillment decisions in multi-channel retail/e-tail organizations
Computers and Operations Research
No-Holdback Allocation Rules for Continuous-Time Assemble-to-Order Systems
Operations Research
Mathematics of Operations Research
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When a customer orders online, an online retailer assigns the order to one or more of its warehouses and/or drop-shippers to minimize procurement and transportation costs based on the available current information. However, this assignment is necessarily myopic because it cannot account for any subsequent customer orders or future inventory replenishment. We examine the benefits of periodically reevaluating these real-time assignments. We construct near-optimal heuristics for the reassignment for a large set of customer orders to minimize the total number of shipments. Finally, we present evidence of significant saving opportunities by testing the heuristics on order data from a major online retailer.