8 Supply Chain Management and Logistics
A rst step in the planning process consists of determining the mission of
the overall warehouse network and the individual locations that will make
up the network. Note that not all warehouses on a network will necessarily
have the same mission or play the same role. The number of warehouse eche-
lons to establish represents a common strategic network design question that
heavily inuences the mission of individual warehouses. For example, a rm
must decide whether it will operate a single-echelon network in which every
warehouse will receive shipments of all products directly from all plants,
or alternatively if it wants to operate a multi-echelon warehouse network in
which one or more rst-echelon, ...