Management & Engineering 27 (2017) 1838-5745

Contents lists available at SEI

Management & Engineering

journal homepage: www.seiofbluemountain.com

Modeling and Quantitative Analysis of the Impact of

Direct vs. Indirect Distribution in the Performance of a
Supply Network
Xuangan DING∗

School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, 100044, P.R.China

KEYWORDS ABSTRACT

Transportation costs, In this paper, my purpose to build this model is minimizing the cost of
Inventory costs, distributing freight by truck from a supplier to many customers. In
Supply chain, further research, tests should be conducted with respect to pollution
Companies and waste caused by vehicles. Only with the consideration of all these
factors, can we attain a truly improved model. Unlike the majority of
earlier works which focus on designing minimum path network
algorithms and estimating distances. This literature explicitly considers
costs related to travel distance (e.g., driver wages, equipment costs,
and in-transit inventory costs). In addition, the analytic approach
taken here focuses on the spatial density of customers and on the
distribution of customer demand, and rather than on the demands of
specific customers in precise locations.

© ST. PLUM-BLOSSOM PRESS PTY LTD

1 Introduction consumers directly rather than going through

1.1 Direct distribution
Direct distribution means selling products to
intermediaries. For example Banking services,
Health services, credit cards, petrol/diesel
(companies own outlet), education etc.
Advantages of direct distribution systems

∗Corresponding author.
E-mail address: 14125349@bjtu.edu.cn

English edition copyright © ST. PLUM-BLOSSOM PRESS PTY LTD

DOI:10.5503/J.ME.2017.27.007
45