Market-based Dynamic Control of Vehicle Deployment and Shipment Load Makeup in RFID-enabled Environments

For the past several decades, advances in manufacturing and supply chain management have improved the business environment. Nonetheless, dynamics, such as various unexpected disruptions and uncertainties, in business operations have significant impact on decision-making efficiency. Adoption of wireless communication and sensor technologies has facilitated real-time visibility of the operational dynamics in manufacturing and supply chains. The availability of real-time information requires that new decision-making strategy design should consider: (1) constantly changing operational environment and (2) large amount of distributed information.This thesis is motivated by a real world example relating to outbound logistics of an automobile manufacturers¡¯ supply chain. In specific, this thesis addresses the shipment yard operations, such as vehicle deployment and shipment load makeup, where an RFID-based wireless tracking system provides real-time information of vehicles. In order to investigate the impact of RFID-based wireless tracking on the shipment yard operations, new operational processes and corresponding decision-making models, which can effectively utilize real-time vehicle information, are designed.To support and solve new decision-making models for vehicle deployment and shipment load makeup, this research introduces a market-based control mechanism, which is supported by a multiagent-based information system architecture. As a market-based control mechanism for vehicle deployment, an ascending price iterative auction mechanism is designed. For shipment load makeup, two different market structures, called a two-tier auctioning process and a single-tier auctioning process, are designed. In order to control each local market in these auctioning processes, an iterative bundle auction mechanism and an iterative high-bid auction mechanism are developed. The performance of the market-based mechanisms is verified through intensive empirical analysis supported by optimal solutions obtained by solving the mathematical programming models. The results support point to high levels of solution quality and computational efficiency of the proposed market-based mechanism. Finally, the proposed decision-making models and market-based control mechanisms improve the operational performance of vehicle deployment and shipment load makeup by effectively responding to the operational dynamics and incorporating the real-time information from the RFID-based wireless tracking system.