The Competitive Time Guarantee Decisions Via Continuous Approximation of Logistics Systems
We show how a supplier can peg cost measures to the reliability of his time guarantees via the penalty costs considered in the framework. The framework also enables us to study the connections between the logistics network and the market. In this context, we show that even when the market base increases significantly, the supplier can still use the logistics network designed to satisfy lower demand density, with only a marginal reduction in profit. Finally we show how the framework is useful to evaluate and compare various logistics system improvement strategies. The supplier can then easily choose the improvement strategy that increases his profit with the minimal increase in his logistics costs.