Optimal position of supply chain delivery window: Concepts and general conditions

The paper introduces a concept of the optimal positioning of the delivery window to the final customer in a serial supply chain. Optimally positioning the delivery window minimizes the expected penalty cost due to early and late delivery. The conditions for the optimal position of the delivery window are derived for the general form of a delivery time distribution. Closed form expressions for the optimal position of the delivery window are presented for several different forms of delivery time distributions that have been reported in the literature to model delivery performance. The optimal positioning of a delivery window is illustrated for an industrial case study.