DESIGNING AN OPTIMAL SUPPLY CHAIN FOR A FAST GROWING SPECIALTY RETAIL CHAIN
K. Srinivasan · OhioLink ETD Center (Ohio Library and Information Network) · 2001
There have been many significant advances in the operations research field in the past years.A lot of work has also been done in supply chain management and logistics modeling.The effect of mixing of these two fields has been a tremendous boon to many an industry.Manufacturing industries are focusing on lean supply chains and the increases competition has benefited the customer immensely.However, in spite of these developments there has been no significant work in logistics and supply chain modeling for the specialty retail industry.Consumer retail on the other hand flourishes on this advantage as the margins in consumer retail are very small and effective management of the supply chain could make the difference between being in business and going out.This work aims at bringing forward through example a thorough application of sophisticated operations research techniques to the specialty retail supply chain.Large margins in this industry provide for reaping of very large benefits by the application of this technology here.Since this would be the very first industry to experience economic turns in the market an urgent need of the applications of these techniques is necessary in this area.