Material management decision support model

A Material Management Decision Support System is applied to a case study distribution facility. The system is formulated within the framework of an algorithm that consists of two primary steps.

The first step utilizes a simulation model to analyze the impact of three management policies that implement material handling equipment in the distribution facility. The simulated results of each policy represent a database of performance measure values.

The second step utilizes a decision model to evaluate the set of policy alternatives. In this step, the user is required to rank order and assign relative weights to decision parameters. A value function is computed for each alternative using this information, the simulated performance measures and non-model parameters. Output for the model is in terms of rank ordered numerical worths that designate the final selection alternative based on the decision maker's preferences.