Modelling and analysis of supply chain management systems: an editorial overview

Abstract

Background to the special issue Manufacturing/service companies have undergone many evolutionary stages and paradigm shifts: from craft production to mass production, from mass to lean and now to agile manufacturing. These developments rely on market requirements and dynamism of the market. In a global market environment, companies have to compete based on flexibility and responsiveness. A number of companies attempt to improve the agility level by distributed enterprises. The concept of supply chain management (SCM) helps the companies in this environment to achieve effective enterprise integration. In the literature, there are numerous papers dealing with the concepts and strategies of SCM. However, there is a need for modelling of supply chain environments with the objective of measuring the performance of various strategies, methods and techno-logies. For this, the application of operational research methods can be used. The supply chain is a worldwide network of suppliers, factories, warehouses, distribution centers, and retailers through which raw materials are acquired, transformed, and delivered to customers. 1 Application of operational research models/techniques has been extensively used in solving the problems of operations management. The essential motivation behind the modelling and analysis is to effectively design and control operations systems for improving competitiveness by producing quality goods and services. These operational research models/techniques can also be applied to solve the problems of supply chain management that include the design of value-added activities, throughput time evaluation, order management, and supplier selection and development. This editorial first presents a brief review of some of the existing literature on the modelling and analysis of SCM and then introduces the papers in this special issue. In conclusion some future research directions are indicated.