The Management of Transshipment Terminals: Decision Support for Terminal Operations in Finished Vehicle Supply Chains (Operations Research/Computer Science Interfaces Series, 34)

1.1 Freight Transshipment We observe an ongoing trend towards globalized industrial produc­ tion. Multinational companies aim at strategic competitive advantages by distributing their activities around the globe. As a result, the in­ dividual supply chains become longer and more complex. Next to the supply chain reliability, companies try to keep supply chains cost effi­ cient and responsive, i.e. warrant short order fulfillment lead times (Siirie and Wagner, 2005). The above goals dictate low inventory levels at the stages of a supply chain as well as a high frequency of transports between the partners involved. Supply Chain Requirements. Detailed performance measures for a supply chain are provided by the Supply Chain Operations Refer­ ence (SCOR) model (Supply-Chain Council, 2002). The SCOR model provides four levels with increasing detail of process modeling. In accor­ dance to the process detail depicted SCOR metrics are defined for each level. Level 1 distinguishes metrics addressing the reliability of supply chains, their responsiveness, flexibility, cost and optionally their assets. On levels 2-4 these metrics are operationalized with respect to the pro­ cess types source, make and deliver. Thus, as substantial activities of the deliver process, transport and transshipment are evaluated as an integral part of the supply chain.