CHAPTER 15: LOGISTICS,

DISTRIBUTION, AND
TRANSPORTATION
LO15–1: Explain what logistics is.
LO15–2: Contrast logistics and warehouse alternatives.
LO15–3: Analyze logistics-driven location decisions.

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Logistics
• Logistics: the art and science of obtaining, producing,
and distributing material and product in the proper place
and in the proper quantities
• Accounts for eight to nine percent of US GDP
• International logistics: managing these functions when
the movement is on a global scale
• Third-party logistics company: an outside company
used to manage all or part of another company’s logistics
functions

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Transportation Modes
• Truck: great flexibility
• Ship: high capacity and low cost but slow
• Plane: fast but expensive
• Train: low cost but slow and variable
• Pipeline: highly specialized and limited to liquids, gases,
and solids in slurry form
• No packaging is needed and the costs per mile are low
• Hand delivery: last step in many supply chains
• Multimodial solutions are the norm

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 Logistics-System Design Matrix: Framework
Describing Logistics Processes

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Exhibit 15.1
Cross-Docking
• Cross-docking: large shipments are broken down into
small shipments for local delivery in an area
• Minimizes inventory in the warehouse
• Hub-and-spoke systems: the sole purpose of the
warehouse (the hub) is sorting goods to consolidation
areas, where each area is designed for shipment to a
specific location
• Hubs are located near the geographic center of the region they are
to serve to minimize the distance a good must travel

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Issues in Facility Location
• Proximity to customers: makes rapid delivery easier
• Business climate: can include presence of similar-sized
businesses, businesses in the same industry, and other
foreign companies
• Total costs: object is to minimize overall cost
• Infrastructure: adequate road, rail, air, and sea
transportation along with energy and telecommunications
• Quality of labor: educational and skill levels must match
needs

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Issues in Facility Location Continued
• Suppliers: proximity of important suppliers supports lean
production
• Other facilities: location of other facilities can influence a
location decision
• Free trade zones: a closed facility into which foreign
goods can be brought without being subject to the normal
customers requirements
• Political risk: risks in both the country of location and the
host country influence the decision
• Government barriers: barriers in many countries are
being removed

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Issues in Facility Location Continued
• Trading blocs: firms locate within a block to take
advantage of new markets or lower total cost
• Environmental regulation: these impact a certain
industry in a given location and must be included in the
decision
• Host community: host community’s interest is part of the
evaluation process
• Competitive advantage: the location should provide the
company with a competitive advantage

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Boeing Adds South Carolina to Its
Dreamliner Assembly Location
• Boeing assembled all commercial planes in Seattle until
the Dreamliner 787 came along
• First Dreamliner came out of SC plant on April 27, 2012
• By the end of 2013, 3.5 planes per month are expected
• Boeing chose SC over the vigorous objection of its union
• The union finally relented, and signed a contract, when
the firm agreed to add an advanced version to the
Dreamliner line-up in Seattle

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Plant Location Methods
1. Factor-rating system
2. Transportation method of linear programming
3. Centroid method

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Factor-Rating System
• Is the most widely used
• List of factors is
developed
• Range of possible points
is assigned to each
factor
• Each site is rated
against each factor
• The sums of assigned
points for each site are
computed
• The site with the most
points is selected
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Transportation Method of Linear
Programming
• Transportation method is a special linear programming
method
• Two common objectives…
1. Minimize costs of shipping n units to m destinations
2. Maximize profit of shipping n units to m destinations

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Example 15.1
• U.S. Pharmaceutical Company has four factories
supplying the warehouses of four major customers
• Its management wants to determine the minimum-cost
shipping schedule for its monthly output to these
customers
• Factory supply, warehouse demands, and shipping costs
per case for these drugs are given in the table in the next
slide

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 Example: U.S. Pharmaceutical Company

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Exhibit 15.2
 Example: Excel Screen Showing the U. S.
Pharmaceutical Problem

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Exhibit 15.3
Example: Solver Parameters

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Centroid Method
• Used for locating single facilities that considers existing
facilities, the distances between them, and the volumes of
goods to be shipped between them
• Assumes inbound and outbound transportation costs are equal
• Does not include special shipping costs for less than a full load

• This methodology involves formulas used to compute the

coordinates of the two-dimensional point that meets the
distance and volume criteria stated above

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Centroid Method Formulas
Cx =
å d V ix i

åV i

Cy =
å d V iy i

åV i

C x = X coordinate of centroid
C y = X coordinate of centroid
d ix = X coordinate of the i th location
d iy = Y coordinate of the i th location
Vi = volume of goods moved to or from i th location
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Example 15.2: HiOctane Refining
Company
• The HiOctane Refining Company needs to locate an
intermediate holding facility between its refining plant in
Long Beach and its major distributors
• Next slide shows the coordinate map and the amount of
gasoline shipped to or from the plant and distributors
• In this example, for the Long Beach location (the first
location), dix = 325, diy = 75, and Vi = 1,500

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 Example 15.2: Grid Map for Centroid
Example

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Exhibit 15.4
Example 15.2: Calculations

Cx = X coordinate of centroid
Cy = Y coordinate of centroid
dix = X coordinate of the ith location
diy = Y coordinate of the ith location
Vi = volume of goods moved to or from the ith
location
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 Example 15.2: Grid Map for Centroid
Example with Centroid

Start search for

new location
here

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Exhibit 15.4 (Partial)
Locating Service Facilities
• New service facilities are far more common than new
factories and warehouses
• Much less expensive
• Multiple sites close to customers
• Location decision closely tied to the market selection
decision
• Decision more about maximizing profits than minimizing
costs

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Example 15.3: Linear Regression as a
Model for Service Location
• Develop a model for locating a motel
• The goal is to locate so as to maximize long-term
profitability
• What category of variables and individual items in the
category are important?
• Competitive
• Room rate
• Competitor’s rate, etc.
• Demand generators
• Nearness to military base, hospitals
• Nearness to college
• Nearness to malls, etc.

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 Example 15.3: Independent Variables
Collected for the Initial Model-Building Stage

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Exhibit 15.5
Example 15.3: Choosing Variables That
Matter
• Look at the correlation of profitability (operating margin
over the last few years) with all the potential parameters
• Pick the ones that are highly correlated (in a positive or
negative fashion)
• Run a regression line with the chosen parameters as the
independent variables and profitability as the dependent
variable
• Profitability = 39.05 - 5.41 x State pop. per inn (1,000)
+ 5.86 x Room rate for the inn
- 3.91 x Square root income of area (1,000)
+ 1.75 x College enrollment within 4 miles

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Example 15.3: How the Result Is Used
• The hotel chain implemented the model on a spreadsheet
and routinely uses the spreadsheet to screen potential
real estate acquisitions
• The founder and president of the hotel chain has
accepted the model’s validity and no longer feels
obligated to personally select the sites
• This example shows that a specific model can be
obtained from the requirements of service organizations
and used to identify the most important features in site
selection

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Summary
• Logistics covers the entire scope of obtaining, producing, and
distributing material and product to the proper place and in the
correct quantities
• The focus is on the movement of material and the location of
warehouses and manufacturing plants
• Third-party logistics companies provide services to many companies
• Decision related to how material will be transported and where
plants and warehouses are located have an impact on the cost
of the product
• Transportation alternatives include water, rail, highways, air,
pipelines, and hand delivery
• Finding the optimal logistics-system design is a complex task
• The factor-rating system is an analytical tool that allows
consideration of many different types of criteria
• Locating service type businesses is often very dependent on
how close the contact needs to be to customers
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Practice Exam
1. This is the art and science of obtaining, producing, and
distributing material and product in the proper place and
in the proper quantities
2. A company that is hired to handle logistics functions
3. A mode of transportation that is the most flexible relative
to cost, volume, and speed of delivery
4. When large shipments are broken down directly into
smaller shipments for local delivery
5. Sorting goods is the main purpose of this type of
warehouse
6. A place where foreign goods can be brought into the
United States without being subject to normal customs
requirements
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Practice Exam Continued
7. The main cost criterion employed when a transportation
model is used for analyzing a logistics network
8. The Microsoft Excel function used to solve the
transportation model
9. For the transportation model to be able to find a feasible
solution, this must always be greater than or equal to
total demand
10. The “changing cells” in a transportation model represent
this
11. This is a method that locates facilities relative to an X, Y
grid
12. A technique that is useful for screening potential
locations for services
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