Solution Methodology for Synchronizing Assembly Manufacturing and Air Transportation of Consumer Electronics Supply Chain

In this paper, we study the problem of synchronization of air transportation and assembly manufacturing to achieve accurate delivery with minimized delivery cost. This problem is observed in PC assembly manufacturing industry. There are two integrated decisions involved in the research problem and they are (1) optimal allocation of orders to various flights in the planning period and (2) an appropriate release time for each order to complete the assembly to match the first decision. We propose two solution methodologies for the research problem. An Integer Linear Programming model is developed for the first decision, backward scheduling logic for the second decision in solution methodology 1 and forward scheduling logic for the second decision in solution methodology 2. The computational experiments indicate that the proposed solution methodologies can achieve excellent average performance in comparison with an existing industry practice heuristic. Furthermore, the solution methodology with backward scheduling logic for determining orders' release time works better than the solution methodology with forward scheduling logic. The computational results demonstrate the effectiveness of our methodologies over a wide range of problem instances. Finally, managerial implications of the proposed methodology are presented