WHOLESALER: A Decision Support System for Wholesale Procurement and Distribution

Develops a decision‐making framework for the design and operation of a wholesaling system. Considers the new roles of wholesaling and proposes an optimization model to satisfy best the service requirements at the minimum cost. Using this model, a prototype decision‐support system is developed to build various scenarios and suitable models for these scenarios. A number of management reports are prepared to help managers negotiate prices or volumes, consolidate warehouses, select transport modes, and test the effectiveness of proposed service packages.