Chicago Public School System

Eisenstein, D.D., and Iyer, A.V. Separating Logistics Flows to Improve Distribution at the Chicago Public School System. Operations Research, 44(2) 265—273, November—December 1996. 

Eisenstein and Iyer [33] provide a description of a project to improve supply availability in the Chicago Public School System. The supply chain consisted of a warehouse that supplied products to 600 public schools. The products included engineering and educational supplies. Engineering supplies, also called Class A, included toilet paper, paper towels, rock salt, and so on, and accounted for about 50% of dollar value of the warehouse shipments but 1% of the items and 70% of the shipment volume. Educational supplies, also called Class B, accounted for 99% of the items, 50% of the dollar volume, and 30% of the physical volume. In the original system, all items shared a common truck capacity to minimize waste shipment space. Each school had a scheduled delivery once every two weeks. 

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