Analyzing the Volume Flexibility of Transportation Planning in Supply Chains

Hellingrath B, Pfeiffer D

Zusammenfassung

While the beneficial impact of supply chain flexibility is generally acknowledged, little research exists to date addressing how an organization can measure and achieve flexibility in its supply chain. Especially the influence of tactical planning methods on supply chain flexibility remains weakly investigated. This paper seeks to enhance the knowledge in this area by the proposition of a concept which allows measuring and analyzing the volume flexibility of transportation planning. In order to accomplish this, we first introduce appropriate quantitative flexibility measures and then follow a scenariobased approach using an example milk-run scenario from the consumer goods industry