A fast-growing e-commerce firm that has revolutionized the shopping behavior of the masses in India has recently crossed 1 billion in sales by gross merchandise value. It is now eying at the 10 billion mark and therefore needs to expand its expedited delivery services to more cities across the country, which will require setting up new fulfillment centers. The case seeks answers related to locating the optimal number of new fulfillment centers to be set up based on different coverage requirements for different tier cities, as specified by the management. It provides an opportunity for the instructors to demonstrate the need and art of mathematical modeling for optimization and its nuances using a practical application to facility location problems. The case enables students to appreciate the complexity of real-world combinatorial optimization problems and the power of mathematical modeling (through integer programming) in solving them using Microsoft Excel Solver, as well as commercial large-scale solvers accessed through state-of-the-art optimization suites such as A Mathematical Programming Language (AMPL). Over the past several years, the case has been used as a pedagogical tool across multiple programs in multiple institutes and has received appreciation from a diverse range of participants. Supplemental Material: The Case Data Excel file is available at https: //doi. org/10. 1287/ited. 2024. 0082ca. The Instructor Materials package and Teaching Note are available at https: //www. informs. org/Publications/Subscribe/Access-Restricted-Materials.
Jayaswal et al. (Mon,) studied this question.