Date of Award

3-14-2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Operational Sciences

First Advisor

Matthew J. Robbins, PhD.

Abstract

The inventory routing problem coordinates inventory management and transportation policies when implementing vendor managed inventory replenishment, the business practice were a vendor monitors the inventory of its customers and determines a strategy to replenish each customer. The United States Army uses vendor managed inventory replenishment during combat situations to manage resupply. The military variant of the stochastic inventory routing problem considers delivery failure due to hostile actions. We formulate a Markov decision process model for the military inventory routing problem, with the objective to determine an optimal unmanned tactical airlift policy for resupplying brigade combat team elements in a combat situation using cargo unmanned aerial systems for delivery. Computational results are presented for the military inventory routing problem with direct deliveries. Results indicate that unmanned aerial systems are capable of performing brigade combat team resupply, given the dynamics of the threat situation. An experimental design is employed to determine the set of factors important in a more general context.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-ENS-14-M-20

DTIC Accession Number

ADA600342

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