Mobile Supply Chain Research Articles

INVESTIGATING THE ENHANCEMENT OF CONSTRUCTION SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT WHEN INCORPORATED WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) with mobile applications for supply chain management is examined in this review of the literature. It emphasizes the revolutionary effect of AI on supply chain process optimization by looking at a variety of academic publications. According to the abstract, there is general agreement that supply chain operations can benefit from AI-powered mobile applications in terms of increased productivity, lower costs, and reduced risk. Real-time tracking, inventory management, and demand forecasting using machine learning algorithms are some of the major themes. The compilation of multiple studies emphasizes how important AI applications are for supply chains that want to be resilient and adaptive. The abstract also highlights how mobile platforms are becoming increasingly important as a channel for smooth AI integration, giving decision-makers access to data and insights in real time. All of the reviewed literature points to the strategic integration of AI in mobile supply chain applications as a key factor in today's business environments that foster innovation and competitiveness. Keywords: supply chain, Artificial intelligence, construction, Mobile application, Technology.

Stakeholders' engagement through social media analytics in promoting sustainable development practices in the mobile supply chain: A cross‐country analysis

AbstractThe stakeholders' perceptions can significantly impact the management of the supply chain; however, there has been little comparative research on customers' opinions in various regions of the world. This paper conducted a thematic analysis to determine the differences between consumers' perceptions in developed and developing countries. This study analyzes six countries—the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, India, Japan, and China—with a high social media engagement rate. Then, sentiment analysis was utilized to uncover consumers' emotions. The results indicate that social media users in developing nations are increasingly concerned about the sustainability of the mobile supply chain. Also, developing nations tweeted primarily about socially sustainable practices, whereas developed nations were more concerned with environmentally sustainable practices. This study contributes to the theory of stakeholders and institutions by concentrating on external stakeholders and analyzing their perspectives to determine how to enhance sustainable practices in supply chains.

Modelling the factors affecting the adoption of mobile supply chain management in the food distribution industry

Modelling the factors affecting the adoption of mobile supply chain management in the food distribution industry

Software-Defined Mobile Supply Chains: Rebalancing Resilience and Efficiency in Production Systems

The miniaturization and modularization of production capacity brings with it not only greater agility and efficiency, but also increased flexibility in the form of mobility. This flexibility allows production capacity to be moved when and where it is most needed, generating new business opportunities, e.g., allowing modular units to be rented, leased, or shared. This flexibility, however, requires information and control systems that ensure a correct and secure flow of information between different stakeholders of the supply chain. Based on this, the present article characterizes the concept of software-defined mobile supply chains, presenting its main requirements, opportunities, and limitations. In addition, we present two case studies in which the proposed concept is evaluated in order to demonstrate its applicability. Here, due to the new optimization problems that arise when considering mobile facilities, special interest is given to the planning and control of the required operations, as well as the difficulties associated with the exchange of physical and intellectual assets between different stakeholders.

Managing the Tension between Trust and Confidentiality in Mobile Supply Chains

This research investigates the tension between trust and confidentiality in Mobile Supply Chains (MSCs), where a production asset that is owned by one of the partners is outsourced to another partner of the supply chain for the production of goods, chemicals, or pharmaceuticals. The novelty of the MSC concept is to be found in its innovative and sustainable approach to production and operation processes in supply chains. Implementation of the MSC model could, however, raise trust and confidentiality concerns. The interplay of trust and confidentiality, or preservation of information privacy, between partners plays a central role in the supply chains, particularly because they are genuinely dependent on each other. Qualitative data analysis was used, in which semi-structured interviews with the experts from the chemical and pharmaceutical industries in Germany were conducted to investigate the tension between trust and confidentiality, and important factors affecting it. The results of the study present four different integration scenarios, namely, the low-quality, conservative, grey-box, and innovation scenarios, which consider different levels of trust, confidentiality and information sharing. Subsequently, the tension between trust and confidentiality is analyzed within these scenarios, and three effective strategies which encourage partners to balance the tension between trust and confidentiality are proposed. The study indicates that the balance between trust and confidentiality can be maintained in some scenarios when critical factors such as transparency, trust negotiation, and a reward-sharing system are present.

Modeling the Factors Affecting the Adoption of Mobile Supply Chain Management in the Food Distribution Industry

Modeling the Factors Affecting the Adoption of Mobile Supply Chain Management in the Food Distribution Industry

Identification of factors and outcomes of trust in mobile supply chains

PurposeThe main purpose of this paper is the identification of the conceptualization of trust as well as its factors and outcomes in interorganizational relations in mobile supply chains (MSCs) in which multiple stakeholders collaborate.Design/methodology/approachThe authors first used a comprehensive literature review to extract related factors and outcomes of trust. Second, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews in chemical and pharmaceutical companies in Germany. These organizations stand out as leaders in the concept of MSCs and have developed collaborations with various stakeholders.FindingsBased on the results, a conceptual model has been developed that elaborates on the nature of trust and its factors and outcomes for cultivating trustful stakeholder collaboration. The study identifies six factors or approaches for building trust and two outcomes resulting from mutual trust.Practical implicationsThe conceptual model presented in this study can serve as a basis for developing trust in MSCs. Interorganizational collaborations in MSCs are more successful when saturated with trust. The collaboration systems must allow the innovative organizations to create value through the adaptation of advanced technologies without failure.Originality/valueThe study adds to the body of knowledge in building trust in multiple stakeholder collaboration, particularly in innovative organizations which are involved with disruptive technologies.

Coordinated allocation production routing problem for mobile supply chains with shared factories

The mobile supply chain (MSC) is a new development that aims to help companies implement these ideas. In MSCs, production, distribution, and delivery of a product family is performed by a mobile factory (MF), which can be carried by truck and shared among different production sites. In this paper, a real-world application of mobile factories in the chemical industry is studied. Critical production assets (e.g. reactor) are carried by truck and can produce a product family locally. For this purpose, a mixed-integer mathematical model is developed to optimize the logistics costs of MSCs, concerning retailer/job-order allocation, production scheduling, and MF routing. The proposed optimization model is overly complex due to the three NP-hard sub-problems. Therefore, a neighborhood search and an evolutionary algorithm are developed to solve the problem in large-scale data sets. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithms can find a near-optimal solution in a reasonable time.

Joint optimization of production and routing master planning in mobile supply chains

Many supply chains suffer from a lack of flexibility, adaptability, and robustness, which imposes customer dissatisfaction, transportation, backlog, and rework costs on companies. The mobile supply chain (MSC) is a newly developed idea that aims to rectify this problem. In this kind of supply chain, production, distribution, and delivery of a product family are performed by a mobile factory (MF), which can be carried by truck, while stationary production sites are no longer required. The production process is completed directly at the customer's location following customer detail requirements. In this paper, a mathematical model is developed to optimize the mobile factory routing problem as well as production scheduling at each customer's site, which is inspired by a real-world application of modular production in the chemical industry. For this purpose, due dates of customers’ work orders and transportation costs should be considered simultaneously. The model results indicate that if these objective functions are taken into account separately, the results will be sub-optimal solutions causing substantial financial losses for customers and suppliers. The proposed bi-objective model using a multi-objective optimization approach proffers a Pareto frontier. Accordingly, decision-makers can choose from a range of solutions, from zero delayed orders to the lowest transportation costs. However, in many cases it is possible to reach zero delayed orders with just a small increase in transportation costs.

Modeling the Factors Affecting the Adoption of Mobile Supply Chain Management in the Food Distribution Industry

Modeling the Factors Affecting the Adoption of Mobile Supply Chain Management in the Food Distribution Industry

Influencing Factors and Evaluation Model of Quality Risks in Intelligent Manufacturing Mobile Supply Chain

The intelligent manufacturing (IM) supply chain (SC) involves multiple distributed agents. The mobile supply chain (MSC) technology supports the real-time management of key information resources in the supply chain of IM products. This paper explores the influencing factors and evaluation model of quality risks in IM MSC, trying to make realistic evaluation of the actual quality risks of the enterprise. Firstly, the authors constructed a quality risk identification framework for IM MSC, and a hierarchical evaluation index system (EIS) based on the factors affecting quality risks. Besides, the features and attributes of four dimensions of quality risks were specified, and the corresponding intuitive triangular fuzzy numbers were given. Next, an evaluation model was established for the quality risks of IM MSC based on backpropagation neural network (BPNN). After the evaluation of quality risks, a contract model was designed for the quality risk control in IM MSC. The proposed EIS and models were proved effective through experiments.

The effect of risk tolerance in mobile game supply chain pricing and effort decisions

In this paper, we study a mobile game supply chain selling a mobile game. We consider two major players in the supply chain: a mobile game developer who develops the mobile game (i.e. supplier) and a mobile game distributor who publishes and sells the mobile game (i.e. retailer). The developer determines its wholesale price and product quality efforts, while the distributor determines its markup and product sale efforts. To this end, we derive the supply chain players’ optimal decisions under a Nash equilibrium. We investigate the impact of effort efficiency on the supply chain player’s optimal pricing and effort decisions. We show that risk aversion may not always lead to conservative supply chain decisions, and risk seeking may not always lead to aggressive decisions. Our analyses indicate that moderate risk-seeking can mitigate double marginalisation in a decentralized supply chain. However, optimal supply chain decisions cannot be made by simply adjusting the supply chain player’s level of risk tolerance.

Procurement and coordination under imperfect quality and uncertain demand in reverse mobile phone supply chain

The extremely short life cycles and rapid advent of new technologies are placing used phones at the forefront of reverse supply chain management. This research focuses on the incentive mechanisms in a supply chain of used mobile phones that are still usable and thus can be sold at a lower price to secondary markets where customers are more price-sensitive. Through an in-depth case study, we first explored the second-hand mobile phone supply chain structure and operational procedure. Then we investigated and compared two different incentive strategies between a take-back enterprise (referred to as a “distributor”) and a supplying firm with large quantities of used phones (referred to as a “supplier”), namely quantity discount scheme and coordinated quality improvement. The optimal order quantities and/or quality improvement levels are analyzed in both decentralized and centralized settings. Our results show that the quantity discount scheme may result in a centralized optimization, while the quality improvement scheme could benefit the entire supply chain when the initial imperfect ratio is not low. Moreover, the value of quality improvement decreases with the demand uncertainty under a decentralized system but increases in a centralized supply chain. This research provides an effective tool and guideline for evaluating different procurement and incentive strategies in reverse mobile supply chain management.

Mobile supply chain management in the Industry 4.0 era

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify avenues for future research in mobile supply chain management (mSCM) in the advent of Industry 4.0.Design/methodology/approachA systematic literature review was used to identify, classify, and analyze current knowledge, identify trends, and propose recommendations for future research.FindingsOther research fields, such as operations, production, industrial engineering, and computer science, seem to have a head start in research into Industry 4.0. Several avenues are suggested for investigation under an information systems lens.Research limitations/implicationsDespite the care taken in the systematic literature review, the language (English), the selected keywords, and selected databases represent a natural limitation.Practical implicationsWith Industry 4.0 at the top of the agenda of managers and countries, it is important to identify relevant research avenues.Originality/valueA gap between the extant literature on mSCM and new concerns raised by Industry 4.0 is presented, and some research opportunities to close those gaps are proposed.

The construction of mobile RFID authentication mechanism and relative ownership transfer protocols for supply chain

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to complete the following works: construct RFID integration mechanism in the supply chain; build mutual authentication mechanism; and build the transfer mechanism in supply chain. Design/methodology/approach – In order to transfer RFID tag information to others safely in mobile RFID supply chain circumstances, the authors propose a RFID authentication mechanism which can ensure the identity and make the mutual authentication. Moreover, the authors propose a secure transfer method of ownership for the specific role in different regions under the structure of Mobile RFID. Findings – The task of administrator server is to check the order, store the merchandise information, distribute the authority, certify the security and transfer the ownership. It can make the whole supply chain more mobility, and transfer faster. Originality/value – The goals of this research are to achieve mainly: using mobile RFID system to design secure mutual authentication mechanism, transfer mechanisms with faster transfer and authority distribution. The authors introduce the security authentication and competence transfer mechanism in supply chain.

AfyaJamii: Introducing a group prenatal and postnatal care model in Kenya

public health facilities in Tanzania, is used by staff to report stock levels and receipts of essential medicines via SMS using their own phones. This information is analyzed and displayed on a web-based dashboard, where decision makers at higher levels of the supply chain access reports and monitor the functioning of the supply chain. In Malawi, under the cStock system, community health workers (CHWs) report stock on hand everymonth via SMS, after which the system calculates the amount that each CHW should be resupplied and sends this information to resupply points via SMS. In 9 countries, the End-Use Verification (EUV) activity is conducted under the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), where survey teams from the Ministry of Health and other national programs use mobile phones on a quarterly basis to visit health facilities and collect patient and supply chain data that is used to provide actionable findings to decision makers. Outcomes & Evaluation: All three mobile supply chain programs have achieved scale, with the ILSGateway in Tanzania now functioning in all 4600+ public health facilities, and cStock in Malawi scaled to all 3000+ CHWs. A mixed-methods midline evaluation in 2013 found that cStock notably improved community logistics data visibility and reduced stock outs. End Use Verification continues to be conducted every quarter in the countries listed, and has collected data from 10000+ site visits since 2009. The data collected in each system is routinely used to make better informed supply chain decisions, leading to better targeted use of scare resources, and increased availability of vital health commodities. Going Forward: As with all information systems in resource-challenged countries, ongoing sustainability is a challenge. High turnover rates among health facility staff require plans for ongoing refresher trainings. National budgets must be revised to include system main Funding: cStock was funded through a grant from the Bill and MelindaGates Foundation, and is beingmaintained byWHO, Save the Children,UNFoundation, andUSAID . The ILSGateway is funded by USAID, and the EUV is funded through USAID under PMI. Abstract #: 02ITIS029

ACHIEVING OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE BY IMPLEMENTING AN ERP (ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING) SYSTEM (A CASE STUDY OF A LARGE SCALE INDUSTRY)

The objective of this research paper is to study the benefits in terms of operational excellence after implementing of an ERP system in a large scale industry (Filters Manufacturer). The study contains the functions from ‘Inventory’, ‘Procurement’, ‘Order Management’ & ‘Mobile Supply Chain’. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software integrates key business and management processes within and beyond a firm’s boundary. An ERP system has the potential to seamlessly integrate various processes and functions of an organization, and generate a comprehensive picture of an entire company. Traditional methods of doing the business are too slow for the industry which is trying to compete against electronic. The paper highlights the benefits mainly in- i) Processing Time ii) Manpower Reduction iii) Reduction in Audit Frequency iv) Inventory Traceability v) Availability of Data & Reporting Advantages vi) Month End Closures / Reconciliations & Year End Closure vii) Operational Excellence & Productivity Improvements

Determinants of mobile supply chain management system diffusion: a structural equation analysis of manufacturing firms

Mobile supply chain management (SCM) is gaining recognition as a major source of cost reduction and supply chain performance improvement. The current literature related to mobile SCM needs to be extended further in order to provide insights into how manufacturing firms can implement mobile SCM successfully. Specifically, there is a need to provide empirical and systematic analysis of the variables that can explain the various stages of mobile SCM diffusion. A review of recent literature suggests that existing e-supply chain technology adoption literature is not strongly grounded in theory. A theoretical model with six hypotheses was proposed based on the technology–organisation–environment (TOE) framework and innovation diffusion theory (IDT). This study draws its survey responses from a group of manufacturing firms in order to investigate the factors that affect the diffusion of mobile SCM. The results show that the variables derived from TOE and IDT can explain mobile SCM diffusion well. However, interorganisational relationships (IORs) play a crucial role in determining the success of mobile SCM routinisation. This is one of the first known empirical studies on the factors influencing the diffusion of mobile SCM. The results of this study will help decision makers better understand the implementation process of mobile SCM and formulate strategies for successful diffusion of mobile SCM.

Supply Chain Management in Domestic Mobile Phone Industry under Mass Customization

The detailing of professional division of mobile phone components and parts lays a solid foundation to implement mass customization manufacturing mode in real mobile phone industry. Under mass customization, effective operation of the supply chain cannot do without advanced information system as well as progressive supply chain management methods and technology application. This article states the method of mass customization in mobile phone enterprises mainly from aspects like customer relation management, differentiation delay strategy, products structure and supply chain management in the stage of process development design, logistics management of mobile phones and supply chain coordination management, etc.

Multi-agent Middleware for the Integration of Mobile Supply Chain

With the development of mobile network and communication technology, traditional supply chain management is gradually updating to mobile supply chain management, and multi-agent technology has been considered as a very efficient method for supply chain management in mobile environment. After considering the characteristics and limitations of mobile supply chain, and according to the requirements in the manufacturing domain, this paper designs a multi-agent middleware for mobile supply chain management, aiming to solve integration problems and shield off network and terminal heterogeneity in mobile environment, which can achieve mobile supply chain dynamic integration and then improve the efficiency of supply chain management. Its feasibility and efficiency was demonstrated by experiments.