An algorithm for the capacitated, multi-commodity multi-period facility location problem
Computers and Operations Research
Models for Supply Chains in E-Business
Management Science
Integrated inventory pooling for firms servicing both on-line and store demand
Computers and Operations Research
Capacity planning in networks of queues with manufacturing applications
Mathematical and Computer Modelling: An International Journal
Survey: Facility location dynamics: An overview of classifications and applications
Computers and Industrial Engineering
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This paper develops an optimal solution procedure for the multi-period online fulfillment assignment problem to determine how many and which of a retailer/e-tailer's capacitated regional warehouse locations should be set up to handle online sales over a finite planning horizon. To reduce the number of candidate solutions in each period, dominance rules from the facility location literature are extended to handle the nonlinear holding and backorder cost implications of our problem. Computational results indicate that multi-period considerations can play a major role in determining the optimal set of online fulfillment locations. In 92% of our test problems, the multi-period solution incorporated fewer openings and closings than myopic single period solutions. To illustrate the use of the model under changing demands, the multi-period solution yielded different supply chain configurations than the myopic single period solution in over 37% of the periods.