Conference on Stochastic Models of Manufacturing and Service Operations (SMMSO) in Edesheim, Germany

The biennial Conference on Stochastic Models of Manufacturing and Service Operations (SMMSO) is a single-track conference of invited talks that brings together international researchers in the field of stochastic modeling in production and service operations. This year, the 15th edition of SMMSO took place at the historic castle "Schloss Edesheim" in southwestern Germany, organized by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the University of Mannheim.

Prof. Dr. Uta Mohring presented her recent work on transparent time-dependent shipment pricing for e-fulfillment.

Fulfilling online orders quickly is increasingly important in e-commerce, with many companies offering same-day shipment to meet rising customer expectations. Yet when shipment options and fees are not aligned with fulfillment capacity, firms risk overpromising, leading to delays and customer dissatisfaction. In particular, fulfillment centers may be unable to hand over all same-day orders to parcel delivery companies by the agreed deadlines. Shipment options and fees should therefore be adapted to information that is operationally relevant and easy to communicate to customers in advance, namely the time remaining to process and ship an order. The work shows how transparent time-dependent shipment policies help e-commerce firms better align same-day demand with fulfillment capacity while maintaining fairness, simplicity, and clear communication to customers.

Link to the conference webpage: SMMSO
Link to the working paper: arxiv.org