International FAIM Conference 24th : 2014 : San Antonio, TexasUniversity of Texas at San Antonio. Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Lean SystemsChen, JingDong, Ming, Ph. D.Chen, F. Frank2022-07-112022-07-112014http://dx.doi.org/10.14809/faim.2014.0435https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12588/982Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Flexible Automation & Intelligent Manufacturing, held May 20-23, 2014 in San Antonio, Texas, and organized by the Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Lean Systems, University of Texas at San AntonioIncludes bibliographical referencesThis paper focuses on a simple perishable product supply chain with a vendor and multiple retailers. These retailers, densely dispersed in a distribution zone, are sensitive to price, delivery time and product quality. With the aim of optimizing vendor's average expected profit during a shipment consolidation cycle, an analytical model is proposed for this problem. The upper unbound expressions of optimal time policy and fresh-keeping cost are given based on a certain range of time parameter. Then our theoretical findings are verified by using a numerical case. Some useful managerial insights are obtained based on analyzing the sensitivity of this model on major parameters.en-USFarm produce--TransportationFarm produce--MarketingBusiness logisticsMathematical optimizationArticle