Title: Vehicle glass distribution reliability measurement under transportation cost constraint

Authors: Cheng-Ta Yeh; Yi-Kuei Lin; Cheng-Fu Huang

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, Shih Hsin University, Taipei 106, Taiwan ' Department of Industrial Management, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 106, Taiwan ' Department of Industrial Management, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 106, Taiwan

Abstract: This paper explores a performance measurement model for a multi-state vehicle glass distribution system (MVGDS), where each carrier's available capacity has several states according to a probability distribution. Since vehicle glass may be broken during shipment and transportation, the amount of undamaged glass that arrives may be insufficient to meet customer demand. This situation is called transportation breakage. The performance measurement explored, namely distribution reliability, is defined as the probability that the MVGDS can successfully transport the glass to the correct locations under a transportation cost constraint. Such a performance indicator is an important decision point in improving the distribution system. A minimal-path-based network approach is proposed to model the MVGDS as a multi-state flow network measuring the system's reliability. We investigate a practical case of a Chinese vehicle glass manufacturer exporting to three overseas assemblers through its MVGDS and discuss potential quality improvements in the MVGDS. [Received 20 March 2015; Revised 13 July 2015; Revised 8 August 2015; Accepted 12 August 2015]

Keywords: performance measurement; multi-state distribution system; distribution reliability; transportation costs; transportation breakage; minimal path; network approach; vehicle glass distribution; glass transportation; China; vehicle glass manufacturing; exporting; overseas assemblers.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIE.2016.075848

European Journal of Industrial Engineering, 2016 Vol.10 No.2, pp.243 - 263

Published online: 09 Apr 2016 *

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