Read article “Redesigning a Warehouse Network€ posted on Blackboard under Course Material †’ Related Journal Papers. Answer the following questions in no more than two pages.
1. What is the problem addressed in this paper? What are the benefits and drawbacks of warehouses consolidation in a distribution network?
2. Briefly, in a few sentences (avoid symbols and equations as much as possible), describe the mathematical model developed in this paper. In particular, what is the objective, the sets, the decision variables, and the types of constraints in the model?
3. What type of optimization model and what algorithm/software were used to solve it? What was the size of the problem?
4. What kind of distribution the customer demand had?
5. Who provided the data for the model parameters?
6. Which solution was prescribed by the model for the 10-hours access time base line scenario (describe very briefly)?
7. Since the model is not linear, parameter ranges cannot be readily obtained. Then, how sensitivity analysis is conducted (as in this paper)? For which parameters sensitivity analysis was performed?
8. Assuming that any number between 8 and 13 hours of customer access time is acceptable/desirable, which access time would you pick, given the cost-service tradeoff obtained by sensitivity analysis in Fig 8?