Optimization in supply chain and an application of milk run in supply process from supplier industry

Business operations at first started between the seller and buyer, whereas with the increase of the trade volumes, the business operations developed as a cycle process between supplier, central management and customer and this has constituted the fundamental of the supply chain. By the time, the increase of the customer needs and time problems, complicated the job processes, therefore companies tried to solve those by using the extended supply chain applications. Next, the globalization and competitive market hardened companies in Finance, Market structure and Logistics. Therefore, the management of supply chain has become a must for them.In a condition like this, companies are trying to improve their optimization processes in order to make a difference in market and also to maximize their revenues. Milk- Run, in literature, is one of these differentiation and optimization processes. Milk-Run is a sophisticated application that aims to decrease the incoming material stock, estimate the delivery times, manage the job-sharing and forecast the demand by getting materials not from a distribution center but from various suppliers. In this thesis the milk run application is analyzed in supply chain management concept and with the help of integer programming in calculating the routes, the company applicability of this theory has also analyzed. So finally, in addition to a cost decrease, it has seen that there would be also optimizations in labor and time savings.