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Abstract
We formulate and test a mathematical program to select Air and Sea Ports of Debarkation and intermediate logistical distribution centers, through which we route military supplies over a directed transportation network to meet aggregated weekly demands by military units conducting a steady state contingency operation. The multi-objective model seeks to minimize a weighted combination of the total risk encountered by transported supplies, the total distance traveled by supplies, and the maximum per capita workload supported by transportation assets at a given echelon (i.e., port-to-distribution center versus distribution center to demands). Within our formulation, we account for capacities on arc flows and node throughputs, with the latter enabling the representation of material handling equipment limitations at the ports and distribution centers. For our model, we develop and test an Excel-based decision support tool that invokes the commercial solver CPLEX (Version 12.5) to solve the underlying mixed-integer linear program, and we demonstrate its efficacy on a representative instance. For this instance, we identify extreme points and selected interior solutions on the Pareto efficient frontier and examine the model's sensitivity to selected parameters. We conclude by discussing how the model can account for intra-theater airliftand outlining modifications that can account for expected pilferage losses within the distribution system.
Keywords
Distribution Network, Facility Location, Supply Chain Design
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1. Introduction
The success or failure of military campaigns can provide case studies in logistics. Examples are Hannibal's crossing of the Alps, Napoleon's march towards Moscow, Sherman's March to the Sea during the American Civil War, and the Allied Armies' movement into Germany in 1944-1945. More modern examples include the humanitarian response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the International Security Force Assistance (ISAF) movement into the most remote villages of the Hindu Kush. The success of the United States military in contemporary operations is reliant on both joint and service-specific sustainment endeavors. The Department of Defense's (DOD) global distribution process is a joint endeavor to which each service contributes in order to distribute cargo and meet the demands of military units. The United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) is responsible for planning, resourcing, and executing the global distribution process to move supplies from points of origin in the Continental United States (CONUS) through aerial or...