Spreadsheet-Based Decision Support System for Inventory Management and Ship Scheduling

Optimization - Based Decision Support System 

for Inventory Management and Ship Scheduling

ABSTRACT

In order to distributing product in Indonesia which is archipelago country, company has to use waterway transportation, one of which is ship. By the company, the ship is used to fulfill and replenish warehouse on several islands in Indonesia. In this condition, charter scheme which company usually used to operate the ship is time charter. Scheduling ship with time charter scheme must be proper to avoid low utility which result in high distribution costs. Currently ship scheduling has been done manually using spreadsheet based on the planner knowledge and experience. This makes the planning time become long and exhausting. Besides that, the costs incurred is not evaluated well, thus the distribution costs become high. They rarely use the functions and features in spreadsheet, though there are many features in spreadsheet that when combine will be very helpful for the planner to arrange schedule and decide scenario that is used.

The purpose of this research is to make an integrated system between inventory management and ship scheduling. The inventory and forecast data at each warehouse which available in company enterprises resources planning (ERP) software is linked to Ms. Excel spreadsheet using SQL Server. Then the planner can arrange the planning base on this inventory and forecast data. The result of this research is spreadsheet-base decision support system (DSS) for inventory management and ship scheduling. By using this DSS, planner can decrease planning time, more accurate planning, better decision, and optimize the distribution costs.

Keyword: Inventory, Ship, Scheduling, Spreadsheet, DSS