Supply and Distribution Planning Support for Amoco (U.K.) Limited

Joyce S. Mehring and Milton M. Gutterman
Additional contact information
Joyce S. Mehring: Department of OM/MIS, College of Management Science, University of Lowell, One University Avenue, Lowell, Massachusetts 01854
Milton M. Gutterman: Amoco Corporation, 200 East Randolph Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60680

Interfaces, 1990, vol. 20, issue 4, 95-104

Abstract: The Supply and Distribution Planning System (SDS), developed for Amoco (U.K.) Limited, is designed to support routine planning of monthly and annual distribution of oil products, periodic negotiations of product exchanges and terminal throughput agreements, and strategic planning for facility location and markets. To support these applications, SDS allows users to specify the products, supply sources, terminals, markets, transport options, and time periods they want to consider for planning and then generates and solves a linear programming model of the specified supply and distribution system. SDS, which can represent supply, terminal operations, and primary and secondary distribution, is one of the few LP models that integrates functional areas in the oil industry. The system is flexible, accurate, and produces relevant reports. However, it was not adopted for routine planning largely because, due to economic conditions, very limited resources were available for implementation. To ensure that a system is used, developers and users must make substantial investments not only in developing it, but in establishing and maintaining a suitable environment for it.

Keywords: programming: linear; professional: MS/OR implementation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1990
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.20.4.95 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orinte:v:20:y:1990:i:4:p:95-104

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Interfaces from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().