Title: Improving delivery performance for gamma distributed delivery time

Authors: Maxim A. Bushuev; Alfred L. Guiffrida

Addresses: Department of Information Science and Systems, Earl Graves School of Business and Management, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD 21251, USA ' Department of Management and Information Systems, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, 44242, USA

Abstract: This paper investigates strategies for improving delivery performance to the end customer in a two-stage supply chain. A cost-based analytical model is used to evaluate how the expected penalty cost resulting from early and late delivery can be reduced. The effects of the width of the delivery window and the shape and scale parameters of the gamma distributed delivery time distribution on the expected penalty cost are explored. The model can guide practitioners who are attempting to cost-justify a program to improve delivery performance. It can also be used to estimate cost reduction over several deliveries and compare cost savings with required investments into delivery performance improvement. The model overcomes the limitations of previous delivery improvement studies which did not used an optimally positioned delivery window and were limited to symmetric delivery time distributions.

Keywords: supply chain management; delivery window; gamma distribution; performance measures.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPSCM.2019.100823

International Journal of Business Performance and Supply Chain Modelling, 2019 Vol.10 No.3, pp.195 - 214

Received: 10 Nov 2017
Accepted: 15 Nov 2018
Published online: 18 Jul 2019 *

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