Getting out of a (Strawberry) Jam: An Introduction to Supply Chain Analysis

Heng-Soon Gan - h.gan@ms.unimelb.edu.au
Melbourne Operations Research, The University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia

Kwanniti Khammuang - kwanniti@unimelb.edu.au
Andrew Wirth - wirtha@unimelb.edu.au
Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, The University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia

Abstract

In order to illustrate how various areas of operations research interact in an actual manufacturing scenario, we propose the use of a strawberry jam-making supply chain model consisting of an inventory partner, a production scheduling partner and a delivery partner. The problem is to minimise the overall supply chain cost consisting of inventory order cost, inventory unit purchasing cost, inventory storage cost, transport booking cost, jam storage cost, delivery travel distance cost and jam arrival earliness and tardiness costs. We report on how we devised and taught this case to First Year Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering students at the University of Melbourne.

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pdf 10.1287/ited.6.3.20

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Citation Information
Gan, H., K. Khammuang, A. Wirth 2007. Getting out of a (Strawberry) Jam: An Introduction to Supply Chain Analysis. INFORMS Trans. Ed. 6(3) 20-27. Available online at http://ite.pubs.informs.org/.

DOI: 10.1287/ited.6.3.20