<p><p>To be a market leader, low cost and responsiveness are the key success factors. Logistics activities create high cost reducing competitiveness of the company, especially for the remote production base. Thus, logistics activities which are delivery planning, freight forwarder and delivery mode selection must be optimized. The focusing area of this paper is inbound logistics due to its big proportion in the total cost and involvement with several stakeholders. The optimization theory and Microsoft Excel’s Solver is used to create the standard optimization tools since it is an efficient and user friendly program. The models are developed based on the supply chain management theory in order to achieve the lowest cost, responsiveness and shared objectives. 2 delivery planning optimization models, container loading for fixed slitting and loading pattern and container loading for pallet loaded material, are formulated. Also, delivery mode selection is constructed by using optimization concept to determine the best alternative. Furthermore, freight forwarder selection process is created by extending the use of the delivery mode selection model. The results express that safety stock, loading pattern, transport mode, and minimum order quantity (MOQ) significantly affect the total logistics cost. Including hidden costs, long transit time and delay penalties, leads freight forwarder selection process to become more realistic and reliable. Shorter processing time, ensured optimal solution, transparency increase and better communication are gained by using these optimization models. However, the proper boundaries must be defined carefully to gain the feasible solution.</p></p>

To be a market leader, low cost and responsiveness are the key success factors. Logistics activities create high cost reducing competitiveness of the company, especially for the remote production base. Thus, logistics activities which are delivery planning, freight forwarder and delivery mode selection must be optimized. The focusing area of this paper is inbound logistics due to its big proportion in the total cost and involvement with several stakeholders. The optimization theory and Microsoft Excel’s Solver is used to create the standard optimization tools since it is an efficient and user friendly program. The models are developed based on the supply chain management theory in order to achieve the lowest cost, responsiveness and shared objectives. 2 delivery planning optimization models, container loading for fixed slitting and loading pattern and container loading for pallet loaded material, are formulated. Also, delivery mode selection is constructed by using optimization concept to determine the best alternative. Furthermore, freight forwarder selection process is created by extending the use of the delivery mode selection model. The results express that safety stock, loading pattern, transport mode, and minimum order quantity (MOQ) significantly affect the total logistics cost. Including hidden costs, long transit time and delay penalties, leads freight forwarder selection process to become more realistic and reliable. Shorter processing time, ensured optimal solution, transparency increase and better communication are gained by using these optimization models. However, the proper boundaries must be defined carefully to gain the feasible solution.

In Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), disseminating warning messages in a timely and efficient way through wireless short-range communications can save many lives and reduce traffic congestion. A geographical broadcast protocol provides data delivery to specified geographical areas, using multi-hop communications if needed. Among the main challenges for such protocols are forwarder selection and the reduction of the number of hops required to reach and cover the destination area.  In this thesis we propose an efficient geographical broadcast protocol called Preferred and Contention Based Forwarding (PCBF) and evaluate it through simulations. PCBF uses a combination of contention-based forwarding and selecting preferred forwarders also found in other protocols like Emergency Message Dissemination for Vehicular Environments (EMDV). Since the preferred forwarder is allowed to immediately forward the packet (evading contention among other potential forwarders), this approach reduces end-to-end delays. Notable extensions of PCBF compared to EMDV are the use of direct negative acknowledgements in case of unnecessary rebroadcasts and the use of forwarders outside the target region.  Our simulation results show that the PCBF protocol outperforms selected other protocols in terms of end-to-end delay, re-broadcast overhead and reliability in both sparse and dense networks.