Carbon emissions in supply chains : the case of two-product joint replenishment -

Abstract

This thesis studies the impact of operations management, namely supply chain management, on carbon emissions. Recent literature has demonstrated how classical inventory management models, such as the economic order quantity (EOQ) model, can be amended to allow jointly reducing operational costs and carbon emissions. However, most of this literature is concerned with single-product inventory management models, with little attention paid to realistic supply chain contexts involving several products and locations. Along the line of studying carbon emissions in supply chains, this thesis analyzes an inventory management model with two products replenished jointly over a common cycle in a framework following the assumptions of the classic EOQ model. This is a typical practical situation, when, for example, one truck is used to deliver multiple products from a supplier to a retailer. The research objective is to identify the conditions under which ordering multiple products jointly is “better” than ordering them individually with respect to costs and emissions. Another objective is to analyze carbon control policies that offer a good balance between costs and emissions.