Determining the Appropriate Transportation Option with the Decision Tree

Abstract

Due to the fact that the population density in Turkey is concentrated in the Marmara region, many businesses are positioning their facilities in this region. For this reason, logistics companies, also called 3PL, serving these businesses are located in the same region. Logistics companies determine various transportation strategies according to the shipment volumes of the customers they serve. The main objectives of these strategies are based on cost minimization, productivity increase and improvement of customer service levels. In this publication, a decision tree was used to determine the transportation strategy of a customer of the logistics company whose case study was conducted. The costs of alternative options, including the current transportation option, were calculated and the transportation option with the lowest cost was preferred. In the study, real data was used and a case study was carried out in a logistics company serving in our country. The reason why the decision tree method is preferred is that it is easy to implement and can answer many basic logistics problems.