Connected Supply Chain Research Articles

Optimizing Manufacturing Efficiency: A Toolchain for Flexible Additive Manufacturing Systems

The increasing demand for tightly connected supply chains and flexible manufacturing systems has emerged due to supply chain disruptions and shorter product development cycles. These systems are required to adapt to changing market demands. However, the planning and operation of flexible manufacturing systems must consider both external disturbances, such as high-priority orders and delivery issues of raw materials or intermediate products, as well as internal disturbances like unplanned machine downtimes, production of scrap parts or worker absences. A significant challenge arises from the fact that manufacturing equipment, particularly in job shops, often remains isolated from MES systems. To address these challenges, this research proposes an approach that supports operators through guidance, allowing them the freedom to make decisions and deviate from schedules when necessary. The proposed approach includes a digital toolchain consisting of bill of material and bill of process modeling, a coarse-grained scheduling system, and an online operator guidance system with an integrated fine-planner. To virtually commission the toolchain, a discrete event simulation model is implemented to emulate machine and operator behavior. To showcase the effectiveness of this approach, it is applied to an Additive Manufacturing job shop, where an additional requirement of nesting parts on build jobs exists. By implementing the digital toolchain, manufacturers can enhance their flexibility and responsiveness in managing supply chain disruptions and meeting market demands. Furthermore, the toolchain’s application facilitates improved resource utilization, mitigates production challenges, and optimizes overall manufacturing performance. This research contribution presents a comprehensive solution that integrates digital modeling, scheduling systems, and operator guidance, enabling manufacturers to effectively navigate the complexities of supply chain disruptions and achieve operational excellence in flexible manufacturing systems.

Retracted: Internet of Things-Based Smart and Connected Supply Chain: A Review

Retracted: Internet of Things-Based Smart and Connected Supply Chain: A Review

Data governance in smart factories: Consistency rules for improved data quality in logistics & operations

Smart factories are becoming a mine in the Big Data era. These plants and the connected supply chain are equipped with tons of sensors able to track the production and transportation processes. Nevertheless, all these data may lose their value without appropriate data governance and powerful quality controls.This paper introduces an expanded role of data governance in smart factories by proposing the implementation of quality controls after the data collection by source systems (e.g. ERP, MES, WMS, PLM). Quality controls are based on an original mathematical model to check the consistency of the collected data. The model calculates three mathematical functions called Movements, Inventory and Productivity with data collected from different data sources and enables the identification of data inconsistencies and errors by verifying the mathematical relationships between these three functions.

Increasing resilience of material supply by decentral urban factories and secondary raw materials

Current production processes are frequently dependent on global supply chains for raw materials and prefabricated inputs. With rising political and global risks, these supply networks are threatened, which leads to a reduction of supply chain resilience. At the same time, urban areas are currently one of the main consumers of products and waste material generators. The raw material sourcing for this consumption commonly takes place in globally connected supply chains due to economy of scale effects. Therefore, cities are especially vulnerable to supply chain disruptions. A recent development which could reduce this vulnerability is the installation of urban factories among other urban production concepts, which can be symbiotically embedded into the urban metabolism to utilize the locally available (waste) materials. This, however, is hampered by the smaller production scale of decentralized urban production facilities, limited knowledge and challenges about the urban material flows and their characteristics. Against this background, we introduce a new factory type which is placed between the primary and secondary industrial sector: An urban secondary raw material factory which utilizes local waste material and other urban material flows for the extraction and refinement of secondary raw materials to supply production sites in its surrounding environment. To enable this small-to medium-scale factory type, the application of new production technologies plays a crucial role. Therefore, this paper proposes an approach for matching relevant potential waste streams to different technologies for waste-to-resource refinement. The applicability of the method for identification and evaluation of suitable technologies regarding their potential to be located in urban environments is demonstrated for plastic and metallic materials. Subsequently, key challenges and characteristics of the new factory type are summarized. With the introduction of this new factory type, the lack of scale effects in urban symbiotic networks is expected to be reduced. In conclusion, challenges such as the data-based management of symbiotic relationships among manufacturing companies are highlighted as still relevant in decentral value chains.

Surviving major disruptions: Building supply chain resilience and visibility through rapid information flow and real-time insights at the “edge”

Disruptive events with damaging consequences afflict supply chains across industries. The survival of the business and its consequent recovery depend on the supply chain's resilience. This exploratory article discusses how technology-driven real-time decision-making in a connected supply chain achieves intended business outcomes of resilience, agility, and visibility. Based on an Integrative Literature Review and adopting a Design Science Research Methodology (DSRM), we propose a distributed approach for real-time inferencing in edge near the data sources for rapid autonomous decisioning and recovery planning under disruption. We develop a framework for building resilience in the supply chain using real-time distributed information sharing in a collaborative partner ecosystem. Visibility across the supply chain is ensured with a Digital Control Tower by making information available to any connected node for synchronized action. The important contribution of this research is building a real-time decision framework for sustainable resilience-building in resource-constrained organizations unable to invest in big data and enterprise systems. A set of design propositions following the CIMO framework is expected to help scholars and practitioners alike. A research agenda is provided for the researchers to take forward hypothesis formulation and empirical validation on the basis of the propositions. (194 words)

Internet of Things-Based Smart and Connected Supply Chain: A Review

In the era of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), elements along the supply chain can be connected to one another to offer tracking capabilities. The information obtained from an always connected and working supply chain is then incorporated into the simulations of the virtual world (digital twin). This allows for an instantaneous simulation of the environment at any point in time and better, more optimized, and quicker decisions are made based on the results. This translates into more performance and a stronger competitive advantage. This paper will examine the main concepts surrounding the supply chain from the perspective of digitalization. In this paper, we will take a closer look at the main concepts related to the supply chain in light of digitalization.

Digitalising food manufacturing

Digitalising food manufacturing

Digital supply chain transformation at Jabil: integrated supply and demand planning via concurrent planning

Study level/applicability The case would be relevant to undergraduate level or an introductory master's level course in operations management (OM), supply chain management and production. Subject area The case can be used as part of a core OM course in the MBA curriculum or any OM or supply chain elective. Case overview As a highly diversified manufacturing services company, Jabil's S&OP solution supports customers across many industries such as automotive, cloud computing, consumer packaging, healthcare, mobile, retail and telecommunications. Jabil's customers expect a rapid and accurate response to their demand within hours. Previously, Jabil used a series of legacy disconnected planning tools, unsynchronized data required time-consuming manipulation with Excel. Processes were conducted in siloes leading to a “load and chase” approach, which resulted in excess inventory, component shortages and inadequate capacity. The case focuses on one of the Jabil executives, Lizet Tymon (she). Struggling with the issues caused by the disconnected planning tools, Lizet champions implementing a fully integrated suite of services (built on top of the Kinaxis' RapidResponse software platform). The technology solution proposed by Lizet was ultimately implemented across the company, and the project received high marks, and it opened up career opportunities for her. However, it was not a smooth ride at the very beginning. The case focuses on the issues experienced by Lizet, as she is introducing a new technological solution approach and trying to earn support from her team, her peers, her immediate supervisor, her customers and her higher-level executives. Expected learning outcomes The teaching objectives include: understanding and appreciating the supply chain complexities experienced by a global contract manufacturer; helping students think critically regarding the issues around the sales and ops planning; identifying the data needs for the operation and management of a worldwide, connected supply chain; investigating agile solution approaches for information sharing, decision-making and decision-sharing; and exposing the challenges associated with a large-scale technology adaptation. Social Implications This case study describes the supply chain challenges experienced by a global manufacturing solutions provider and illustrates the technology adaptation led by a female executive. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 9: Operations and Logistics

Applying Integrated QFD-MCDM Approach to Strengthen Supply Chain Agility for Mitigating Sustainable Risks

As the global economy develops and the complexity of supply chains increases, the effective mitigation of sustainable supply chain risks in electronics manufacturing has become important. While quality function deployment (QFD) has been successfully applied to many fields of multicriteria decision-making (MCDM), there is a lack of research on constructing a house-of-quality model that can be combined with MCDM for connecting supply chain agility with sustainable supply chain risks, especially in the field of electronics manufacturing. The objective of this study was to develop an integrated framework of QFD and MCDM and to devise an effective method to mitigate sustainable supply chain risks by improving supply chain agility. Such a method can help the multinational electronics manufacturing industry to develop stable and sustainable supply chains. In a multinational electronic manufacturing enterprise as an example, the results showed that the case enterprise work should focus on improving agility ‘production and sales capability’, ‘quick decision-making/strategic flexibility’, ‘electronic shiapment of finished products to control shipment operations’, ‘supplier on-time delivery rates’ and ‘cost minimization’. Improving agility would help enhance the ‘credibility and competence of operators and leaders’ and ‘product safety and quality’ and reduce ‘goods disruption or delay due to inadequate supply mobility and poor financial performance’, ‘information system instability’, the ‘long product lead time’ and other key sustainable supply chain risks. The proposed framework can not only be effectively used by other electronics manufacturers to develop agile strategies to mitigate sustainable supply chain risks, but also provides a reference for risk management for manufacturers in other fields.

A Convex Dynamic Approach for Globally Optimal Profit in Supply Chains

Supply chain finance aims to coordinate multiple stakeholders to maximize the flow of cash and internal and external funding along the supply chain, as shown in prior research. From a regulatory standpoint, the goal of this paper is to maximize the profitability of an entire supply chain. As a result, a constrained finite time Linear Quadratic Regulation (LQR) approach is provided for determining an entity’s optimal profit state in a supply chain. The framework is represented by discrete-time linear dynamical equations for each entity in the supply chain network, taking state and input variables into account. The problem is formulated in terms of a convex quadratic programming optimization for which several numerically efficient algorithms are readily available. In order to validate the approach, it was tested on two topologies. The first topology is a fully connected supply chain with six nodes; the second is a simple topology based on the Iranian pharmaceutical supply chain. The results indicate that the proposed approach successfully planned production and financing decisions within the simulated supply chain and obtained globally optimal profit for all supply chain stakeholders.

Managing events to improve situation awareness and resilience in a supply chain

This paper aims at improving supply chain resilience by applying a model- and event-driven architecture from the crisis management field: the AIC information system which Acquires, Interprets and Contextualizes events. It begins with a literature review on information systems able to process events in order to improve situational awareness within supply chains. It concludes that supply chain managers still lack a decision support system able to access new information in near real time. The paper describes the components of the AIC information system, and the implications for a supply chain use case. By testing the architecture on a pharmaceutical supply chain, we assess the accuracy, cost and speed of the detection of new risks. These works are made possible by the use of several data streams aggregated into a single decision-making platform. This supports the claim for a more connected supply chain. Our contributions make crisis management knowledge available to supply chain management and help improving resilient decision-making in a fast changing context.

Developing a Blockchain-Based Supply Chain System for Advanced Therapies: Protocol for a Feasibility Study.

BackgroundAdvanced therapies, including cell and gene therapies, have shown therapeutic promise in curing life-threatening diseases, such as leukemia and lymphoma. However, these therapies can be complicated and expensive to deliver due to their sensitivity to environment; troublesome tissue, cell, or genetic material sourcing; and complicated regulatory requirements.ObjectiveThis study aims to create a novel connected supply chain logistics and manufacturing management platform based on blockchain, with cell and gene therapy as a use case. Objectives are to define the requirements and perform feasibility evaluations on the use of blockchain for standardized manufacturing and establishment of a chain of custody for the needle-to-needle delivery of autologous cell and gene therapies. A way of lowering overall regulatory compliance costs for running a network of facilities operating similar or parallel processes will be evaluated by lowering the monitoring costs through publishing zero-knowledge proofs and product release by exception.MethodsThe study will use blockchain technologies to digitally connect and integrate supply chain with manufacturing to address the security, scheduling, and communication issues between advanced therapy treatment centers and manufacturing facilities in order to realize a transparent, secure, automated, and cost-effective solution to the delivery of these life-saving therapies. An agile software development methodology will be used to develop, implement, and evaluate the system. The system will adhere to the EU and US good manufacturing practices and regulatory requirements.ResultsThis is a proposed study protocol, and upon acceptance, grant funding will be pursued for its execution in 2021.ConclusionsThe successful implementation of the integrated blockchain solution to supply chain and manufacturing of advanced therapies can push the industry standards toward a safer and more secure therapy delivery process.International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)PRR1-10.2196/17005

Machine learning for demand forecasting in the physical internet: a case study of agricultural products in Thailand

Supply chains are complex, stochastic systems. Nowadays, logistics managers face two main problems: increasingly diverse and variable customer demand that is difficult to predict. Classical forecasting methods implemented in many business units have limitations with the fluctuating demand and the complexity of fully connected supply chains. Machine Learning methods have been proposed to improve prediction. In this paper, a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) is proposed for demand forecasting in a physical internet supply chain network. A hybrid genetic algorithm and scatter search are proposed to automate tuning of the LSTM hyperparameters. To assess the performance of the proposed method, a real-case study on agricultural products in a supply chain in Thailand was considered. Accuracy and coefficient of determination were the key performance indicators used to compare the performance of the proposed method with other supervised learnings: ARIMAX, Support Vector Regression, and Multiple Linear Regression. The results prove the better forecasting efficiency of the LSTM method with continuous fluctuating demand, whereas the others offer greater performance with less varied demand. The performance of hybrid metaheuristics is higher than with trial-and-error. Finally, the results of forecasting model are effective in transportation and holding costs in the distribution process of the Physical Internet.

Witness Box Protocol: Automatic machine identification and authentication in industry 4.0

The current wave of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is reshaping the manufacturing sector with system interoperability, remote real-time process monitoring and advanced analytics. As digitally enabled manufacturing machines continue to grow exponentially, it becomes imperative to uniquely and securely identify them in the cyber-physical world, particularly in defense, biomedical, energy and aerospace manufacturing. Research about threats originating from internal adversaries’ i.e the machine/organization owner within a tiered digitally connected supply chain is scarce. This paper introduces a machine fingerprinting scheme named as the ‘Witness Box Protocol’ (WBP) that exploits the physical properties of manufacturing machines (legacy or smart) and their surroundings to create a unique biometric like fingerprint. WBP provides both machine registration and authentication on a digital network through a low cost, non-invasive approach. The fingerprint is generated by a Locality Sensitive Hashing (LSH) technique that accommodates small variations in physical signature data and can corroborate data provenance from machines by verifying machine identity through authentication. Additionally, this fingerprint hash simplifies asset management within a large enterprise or distributed network comprising of thousands of machines in a Manufacturing-as-a-Service (MaaS) paradigm. In this research, fingerprints were randomly generated from the statistical features of signals from 3D printers and CNC machine in a production-like lab environment. Using k-means clustering and Jaccard similarity index, these fingerprints are shown to identify the source equipment with 95 % accuracy.

Information technology and risk management in supply chains

PurposeThis paper reviews and classifies research connecting supply chain risk management (SCRM) and information technology (IT) and derives a structured proposal for fruitful research directions.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a systematic literature review of the interplay of SCRM and IT, drawing from major journals in the relevant fields. These findings are enriched by experiences from a three-year international research project.FindingsCurrent research focuses on the role of IT for risk reduction, rather than for risk identification, analysis and monitoring. While much research has investigated operational supply chain risk, fewer insights into disruption risk are available. There is little research on the role of IT in SCRM beyond its potential to enhance information sharing among supply chain partners. To address these gaps, the paper proposes a two-dimensional framework to categorize IT potential for SCRM according to the source and impact of disruption risk on physical supply chain flows, which suggests promising directions for future research.Originality/valueThe paper offers a systematic review to further our understanding of the relationship of SCRM and IT. In addition, it presents and discusses nine areas for further research aimed at mitigating the gaps identified at the intersection of SCRM and IT.

Socially Connected Supply Chains

Network literature has widely documented that the managerial ties between upper echelons in two firms can promote their economic exchanges and vice versa, thus fostering the pluralistic relationships between the two firms. In this study, we strive to advance this line of inquiry by exploring the potential dissolution of such relational pluralism, examining whether and when the dissolution of managerial ties between two firms would cause the subsequent dissolution of their economic exchanges. We address this question by highlighting the implications of an important yet understudied issue - the origin of relational pluralism. That is, we distinguish two types of pluralistic relationships based on their different origins: socially originated pluralistic relationships (SOPRs) versus economically originated pluralistic relationships (EOPRs). We posit that the managerial tie dissolution has only a negligible effect on the subsequent dissolution of economic exchanges in SOPRs. In contrast, in EOPRs, the dissolution of managerial ties between two firms would significantly increase the likelihood for their economic exchanges to dissolve afterward. Using a nuanced field dataset that integrates the managerial tie information from BoardEx and the supply chain data from FactSet Revere, we find strong empirical evidence for the above propositions. In sum, we show that pluralistic relationships with different origins (“doing business with friends” versus “making friends in business”) would have distinct patterns of evolution and dissolution.

Forward and backward critical sectors for CO2 emissions in China based on eigenvector approaches.

China had taken measures to reduce the emissions of CO2 these years as a staunch supporter of the Paris Agreement. However, it is not such an easy task for the authority to decide which sectors should take responsibility on the process of CO2 emissions reduction in the context of highly connected supply chains. Based on the sectoral CO2 emissions and input-output table of China, this study provided both forward and backward perspectives based on eigenvector approaches to identify the critical sectors that are critical for the CO2 emissions in value chains, including a backward method called power-of-pull method that identifies the pulling effect of demand side and a forward method called power-of-push method that identifies the pushing power of supply side. The results showed that the electricity and hot water production and supply was the most influential pulling sector in the studying period, followed by the metal mining in the backward direction. In the forward direction, the electricity and hot water production and supply was also the top 1 important sector while coal mining ranked the second. The results suggest that electricity and hot water production and supply played a vital role in the CO2 emission in the system. During the studied period from 2007 to 2015, the power of nonmetal mining to pull CO2 emissions showed a notable increase. Our proposed approach could be helpful for policy-making because of its user-friendliness comparing with other method as well as providing a new perspective.

BIM, Augmented and Virtual Reality empowering Lean Construction Management: a project simulation game

During the last decades, Lean Management methodologies established in the manufacturing environment have been applied and adapted to the construction industry under the term “Lean Construction”. Currently, concepts and technologies from Industry 4.0 are mainly transforming the manufacturing industry and only few applications have been implemented to construction and its connected supply chains. This paper shows how new technologies like Building Information Modeling connected with Virtual and Augmented Reality could empower Lean Construction methodologies to increase efficiency during the building execution process. The approach was tested by using the project simulation game Villego® with students from the course “Project Management” of the master degree LM-33 “Industrial Mechanical Engineering” of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.

Impact of Tariffs on Global Supply Chain Network Configuration: Models, Predictions, and Future Research

The past three decades have witnessed tremendous growth of supply chain activities around the globe thanks to the lowered trade barriers and free trade agreements among countries. The global supply chain management literature developed during this time provided theoretical frameworks and decision support tools for operational and supply chain decisions in the global context. Recent development in trade barrier debates as well as increasing uncertainties in countries’ trade policies have forced companies to rethink their global operational strategies. In this short paper, we draw insights from the existing global supply chain literature and in particular, focus on interpreting recent research contributions published in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM) on the topic to gain understanding of the implications of trade policies, especially tariffs, for firms’ global facility network design decisions. We also provide a discussion of important dimensions that were absent from the existing literature but are pertinent to providing a richer understanding of implications of trade policies for today’s interconnected supply chains. Future research that takes into consideration those previously less explored dimensions has the potential to offer insights not only to industry practitioners but also, to the policy makers. Developing an appreciation of potential reactions from complex connected supply chains in various industries would help policy makers better anticipate the impact of trade policy change.

Managing cyber and information risks in supply chains: insights from an exploratory analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how companies approach the management of cyber and information risks in their supply chain, what initiatives they adopt to this aim, and to what extent along the supply chain. In fact, the increasing level of connectivity is transforming supply chains, and it creates new opportunities but also new risks in the cyber space. Hence, cyber supply chain risk management (CSCRM) is emerging as a new management construct. The ultimate aim is to help organizations in understanding and improving the CSCRM process and cyber resilience in their supply chains.Design/methodology/approachThis research relied on a qualitative approach based on a comparative case study analysis involving five large multinational companies with headquarters, or branches, in the UK.FindingsResults highlight the importance for CSCRM to shift the viewpoint from the traditional focus on companies’ internal information technology (IT) infrastructure, able to “firewall themselves” only, to the whole supply chain with a cross-functional approach; initiatives for CSCRM are mainly adopted to “respond” and “recover” without a well-rounded approach to supply chain resilience for a long-term capacity to adapt to changes according to an evolutionary approach. Initiatives are adopted at a firm/dyadic level, and a network perspective is missing.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper extends the current theory on cyber and information risks in supply chains, as a combination of supply chain risk management and resilience, and information risk management. It provides an analysis and classification of cyber and information risks, sources of risks and initiatives to managing them according to a supply chain perspective, along with an investigation of their adoption across the supply chain. It also studies how the concept of resilience has been deployed in the CSCRM process by companies. By laying the first empirical foundations of the subject, this study stimulates further research on the challenges and drivers of initiatives and coordination mechanisms for CSCRM at a supply chain network level.Practical implicationsResults invite companies to break the “silos” of their activities in CSCRM, embracing the whole supply chain network for better resilience. The adoption of IT security initiatives should be combined with organisational ones and extended beyond the dyad. Where applicable, initiatives should be bi-directional to involve supply chain partners, remove the typical isolation in the CSCRM process and leverage the value of information. Decisions on investments in CSCRM should involve also supply chain managers according to a holistic approach.Originality/valueA supply chain perspective in the existing scientific contributions is missing in the management of cyber and information risk. This is one of the first empirical studies dealing with this interdisciplinary subject, focusing on risks that are now very high in the companies’ agenda, but still overlooked. It contributes to theory on information risk because it addresses cyber and information risks in massively connected supply chains through a holistic approach that includes technology, people and processes at an extended level that goes beyond the dyad.