Capacity planning
Finding the capacity of a supply chain or its elements; identifying and eliminating bottlenecks. Typically employs iterative analysis of alternative plans.
Demand-supply matching
Determining the intersections of demand and supply curves to optimise inventory and minimise overstocks and stock-outs. Typically involves such issues as arrival processes, waiting times, and throughput losses.
Location analysis
Optimisation of locations for stores, distribution centres, manufacturing plants, and so on. Increasingly uses geographic analysis and digital maps to, for example, relate company locations to customer locations.
Modelling
Creating models to simulate, explore contingencies, and optimise supply chains. Many of these approaches employ some form of linear programming software and solvers, which allow programmes to seek particular goals, given a set of variables and constraints.
Routing
Finding the best path for a delivery vehicle around a set of locations. Many of these approaches are versions of the ?travelling salesman problem?.
Scheduling
Creating detailed schedules for the flow of resources and work through a process. Some scheduling models are ?finite? in that they take factory capacity limits into account when scheduling orders. So-called advanced planning and scheduling approaches also recognise material constraints in terms of current inventory and planned deliveries or allocations.
This article is part of the article Analytics in the supply chain (Issue 143, April 2007).
