Multi-Item Online Order Fulfillment in a Two-Layer Network
Abstract
The boom of e-commerce in recent years has led to the expansion of fulfillment infrastructures by e-retailers. In this paper, the authors study a real-time fulfillment problem in a two-layer RDC-FDC distribution network that has been implemented in practice by major e-retailers. They allow order split, where an order can be split and fulfilled from multiple warehouses at an additional cost. The objective is to minimize the routine fulfillment costs. The authors study real-time fulfillment algorithms with performance guarantees in both settings with and without demand forecasts.
Joint work with: Yanyang Zhao (Chicago) and Xinshang Wang (Alibaba)
Bio
Linwei Xin is an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at Booth School of Business, University of Chicago. His research focuses on inventory and supply chain management, designing models and algorithms for effective supply-demand matching in various contexts with uncertainty. He has received several awards for his research in stochastic inventory theory, including the Applied Probability Society Best Publication Award (2019) and the George E. Nicholson Student Paper Competition (2015).
An old version of the paper can be found here.
