Increasing customer needs, the globalization of markets and the evolution of e-commerce add to the complexity of logistic processes. In today's business, it is well understood that an effective management of logistic processes is impossible without the use of computer-based tools and quantitative methods. This book presents in a systematic way quantitative approaches to distribution logistics and supply chain management. The main orientation of the book is towards practicalproblem solving, and numerous case studies and practical applications are presented. The topics covered include: supply chain management, revers logistics, e-commerce, facility location and network planning, vehicle routing, warehousing, inventory control.

1: Supply Chain Management

Examining Supply Chains from Practice
Valuing Time in Make-to-stock Manufacturing: Calculating the Limits of Time-based Competition
Internal Pricing in Supply Chains
2: Reverse Logistics
Closed-loop Supply Chains
Extended Design Principles for Closed Loop Supply Chains: Optimising Economic, Logistic and Environment al Performance
A Behavioral Approach for Logistics System Analy sis and Design: A Reverse Logisti cs Case
Performance of MRP in Product Recovery Systems with Demand, Return and Leadtime Uncertainties
One and Two Way Packaging in the Dairy Sector
3: Distribution Logistics and E-Commerce
The Logistics Behind the Enter Click
Distribution Planning with Specific Delivery Time Restrictions for the Handling of Electronic Customer Orders in Food/Non-Food Retail Trade
An Analysis of a Combinatorial Auction
4: Warehouse Location and Network Planning
The Practice of Distribution Network Planning: Coping with Shortcomings in Important Data Quality
A Greedy Heuristic for a Three-level Multi-period Single-sourcing Problem
Combinatorial Optimisation Problems of the Assignment Type and a Partitioning Apprach
5: Vehicle Routing and Transportation
The Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows and Simultaneous Pick-up and Delivery
The Application of a Vehicle Routing Model to a Waste Collection Problem: Two Case Studies
Strategic Vehicle Routing Problems in Practice - A pure Software Problem or a Problem Requiring Scientific Advice? Routing Problems of Daily Deliveries to the Same Customers
6: Warehousing
Design of a 2-Stations Automated Guided Vehicle System
On-line versus Off-line Control with Multi-load Vehicles
7: Inventory Control
Average Costs versus Net Present Value: A Comparison forMulti-source Inventory Models
Safety Stocks in Capacity-constrained Production Systems
Approximations for the Waiting Time in (8, nQ)-Inventory Models for Different Types of Consolidation Policies
List of Contributors.