Quantity Flexibility Research Articles

Proses Negosiasi Antara UMKM A.M Tahu Dan Pemasok Bahan Baku Produksi

SME’s are an industry that play an important role in the Indonesia’s economic development. A.M Tahu as one of SME’s have problems in fulfilling raw materials. The existence of special orders and moral hazard from suppliers were often obstacles in the production process so that A.M. Tahu is needed to make a negotiation process to get affordable prices, good quality, and flexibility in the quantity of raw materials with a limited choice of suppliers. The negotiation process certainly does not immediately reach the desired agreement, but efforts need to be made to convince both parties. The research aims to determine the negotiation process that occurs between A.M Tahu and raw material suppliers in reaching agreements. The types of data used in this study are primary and secondary data using AHP (Analysis Hierarchy Process) analysis methods and qualitative descriptive. The results showed that the negotiation process for A.M Tahu has several stages in reaching an agreement between the two parties, including starting from preparation, meetings, offers, and finally agreements. A.M Tahu gets a more convenient raw material price of Rp3,000 per kilo than the price should be, soybean quantity flexibility, and good quality assurance of soybean grain raw materials. A.M Tahu is also prioritized to choose suppliers who are outside the sub-district, and make raw material variables the main thing to consider in supplier selection.

Data-driven contract design for supply chain coordination with algorithm sharing and algorithm competition

Supply chain members can intelligently learn their decisions based on historical data by using Machine-Learning (ML) algorithms. To coordinate the supply chain, the data-driven contract design problems for three contracts—buyback, quantity flexibility, and combined quantity flexibility and rebate—were investigated for a supply chain with one manufacturer and multiple retailers under algorithm sharing and algorithm competition. The problems were formulated as bi-level optimization models by introducing nonlinear mapping from historical demand data to ordering decisions and using ML algorithms to learn the mapping parameters. The bi-level optimization models were transformed into semi-infinite programming models and solved using the (nested) cutting plane methods. Empirical studies using data from two databases showed that algorithm sharing or algorithm competition, the type of contract used, and learning algorithms were the three factors influencing the performance of supply chain coordination when using a data-driven contract design. Algorithm sharing was found to be more beneficial to the supply chain members than algorithm competition in promoting supply chain coordination. An effective incentive mechanism, such as an individualized buyback ratio and a rebate from the manufacturer to the retailers with a good forecast performance, can encourage the retailers to participate in algorithm sharing and improvement.

Integrated relief pre-positioning and procurement planning considering non-governmental organizations support and perishable relief items in a humanitarian supply chain network

The escalating frequency and severity of disasters on a global scale have sparked inquiries into the efficacy of current disaster planning strategies in various scenarios. Despite the pivotal role of humanitarian supply chain planning in aiding impacted populations, much of the existing research is grounded in simplistic assumptions that limit their practicality. Addressing this gap, our proposed bi-objective model aligns response time and total cost, while also accommodating the collaboration between non-governmental organizations and governmental organizations to mirror real-world intricacies. This study comprehensively delves into various logistics aspects, encompassing pre- and post-disaster phases, including location, allocation, supplier selection, fleet size, supply contract, inventory, distribution, and transportation. This multifaceted approach enhances the model's suitability for managing genuine real-world emergencies. To mitigate disruption risks and unforeseen events, the model introduces pre-positioning, quantity flexibility contract, backup suppliers, and a multi-sourcing policy, thus enhancing the resilience and reliability of the logistics network. We present solutions for diverse scenarios through a scaled weighted sum method, while tackling uncertainty via a heuristic approach known as the backward scenario reduction method. Furthermore, to manage large-scale problems within an acceptable time frame, we propose an advanced hybrid algorithm. This algorithm synergizes a parallel differential evolution framework with reinforcement learning-enhanced local search mechanisms, aiming to improve both computational efficiency and solution accuracy. Finally, we validate the model's applicability through a real case study focusing on a flood scenario in Iran.

Quantity Flexibility Contract Model for Emergency Procurement Considering Supply Disruption

Quantity Flexibility Contract Model for Emergency Procurement Considering Supply Disruption

Integrating pre and post-disaster activities for designing an equitable humanitarian relief supply chain

The design of an efficient humanitarian relief supply chain (HRSC) for disaster management depends on the integration of pre- and post-disaster decisions, which reduces the suffering of the victims and saves lives. The use of strategies such as quantity flexibility contracts in the pre-disaster phase and evacuation management in the post-disaster phase significantly increase the efficiency of HRSCs for disaster management. Therefore, in this paper, for the first time, a comprehensive two-stage stochastic mixed-integer linear programming model is presented for integrating the pre- and post-disaster activities for possible disasters such as floods and earthquakes by considering quantity flexibility contract and equitable relief goods distribution. In addition, the proposed model determines the location of warehouses and inventory levels in these warehouses in the pre-disaster phase. It also deals with public donations and budget planning, planning vehicles and helicopters, locating hospitals and shelters, and optimizing the inventory flow between echelons in the post-disaster phase. In the proposed model, the quantity flexibility contract is applied to decrease the inventory level in the pre-disaster phase, and reduce the supply risk in the post-disaster phase. The efficiency and performance of the proposed model are evaluated using the data related to a possible earthquake in Karaj (one of the metropolises of Iran).

Resilient relief supply planning using an integrated procurement-warehousing model under supply disruption

In order to mitigate the damage caused by natural disasters, appropriate relief supply planning is essential for humanitarian relief chains. This paper develops a resilient relief supply plan by formulating a novel integrated procurement-warehousing model under supply disruption via utilizing a portfolio of long-term contracts between a relief organization, multiple main and backup suppliers, and a third party who provides warehousing service. By using a portfolio of supply sources, a tailored two-stage scenario-based stochastic programming model is presented for determining an integrated relief procurement-warehousing plan. The plan includes (1) a number of multi-period quantity flexibility contracts with the main suppliers at pre-disaster, for prepositioning of relief supplies while ensuring to receive extra required amounts at post-disaster, (2) a number of dynamic option contracts with backup suppliers for decreasing the impacts of risks pertaining to the demand uncertainty and supply disruption at the main suppliers, and (3) a multi-period warehousing contract with a third party which allows the relief organization to adjust the required storage space in different periods to avoid extra cost pertaining to the storage space surplus/shortage. An effective differential evolution (DE) solution algorithm is also devised to solve the real scale instances efficiently. Applicability of the proposed model is illustrated by a real case study and useful managerial insights are extracted through conducting several sensitivity analyses.

Participant perspectives on the impact of receiving medically tailored meals on post-hospitalization.

The objective of this program evaluation was to measure the impact of a medically tailored meals (MTM) intervention on participants' self-reported recovery and satisfaction while recovering from a recent hospitalization. A qualitative design was employed using a brief survey among all participants at the end of the intervention and phone interviews with a subset of participants. Participants in this study were recently discharged from the hospital and were members of (redacted for review) who had received 2-4 weeks of MTM. The survey assessed overall satisfaction with the meals and perceived impact on their recovery after hospitalization (81% response rate). Interview questions asked how they felt the meals may have helped while recovering (e.g., helped them financially or with their ability to remain independent). Among survey participants, 65% were extremely or very satisfied with their meals. Reasons that MTM were helpful while they were recovering included having sufficient food to eat, having healthy food to eat, the convenience of the meals, and ease of preparing the meals. Participants receiving MTM were generally very satisfied with the program. Including nutrition education and more flexibility in quantity and frequency of food may improve satisfaction and consumption of food.

Reverse Supply Chain Management Through a Quantity Flexibility Contract: A Case of Stochastic Remanufacturing Capacity

This article investigates a two-echelon reverse supply chain (RSC) where a third-party logistics provider charges customers to return outdated products. A green manufacturer refurbishes qualified returned products through the remanufacturing process. Remanufacturing capacity is considered a stochastic variable. Under the volatility of remanufacturing capacity, some likely examined, and qualified products could not be remanufactured. If a collected product cannot be processed, it should be salvaged at a lower value and be perceived as a lost profit. In such scenarios, increasing the quantity of returned outdated products is suitable if there is a strong possibility of enough capacity in the remanufacturing process. This paper develops a stochastic model to identify the optimal order quantity under diverse contracts, including wholesale price, centralized, and quantity flexibility contracts. Under the quantity flexibility contract, the green supplier might cancel its preliminary order in a restricted quantity. Additionally, third-party logistics supplier offers a restricted quantity above the initial order to minimize understocking during peak seasons. Our numerical experiments demonstrate that the suggested quantity flexibility can coordinate the examined RSC under the volatility of remanufacturing capacity. Contrary to wholesale and centralized contracts, quantity flexibility is a more practical alternative from the perspective of participants’ profitability.

Coordination of humanitarian logistic based on the quantity flexibility contract and buying in the spot market under demand uncertainty using NSGA-II and NRGA algorithms

The extant study aimed to create a kind of coordination in the humanitarian chain by using a quantity flexibility (QF) contract. The QF contract considers a kind of coordination between a relief organization and a producer for inventory management determining order volumes. Due to insufficiency of amenities or time limits during the crisis, an internal producer can outsource a part of its duties to an external producer to produce items and accelerate the relief process. Hence, this study proposed a completely novel bi-objective mathematical model to coordinate relief items’ supply and distribution by using QF contracts and buying in the spot market under demand uncertainty conditions to reduce costs and accelerate relief services. The augmented epsilon constraint method was used to solve the small scales of this model and NSGA-II and NRGA algorithms were employed to solve large scales. The results indicated the powerful performance of NRGA in terms of most evaluation indicators.

A Systematic Literature Review on Quantity Flexibility Contracts in a Supply Chain System

This is the first to comprehensively review the issues such as contract parameters and research models/methods of Quantity Flexibility Contract (QFC) in a supply chain system. We are experiencing a low-frequency-high-impact (LFHI) event such as coronavirus (COVID-19), and rapid technological changes, bringing about a rapid change in customer demand now. Matching supply with demand is one of the biggest challenges in Supply Chain Management (SCM). That is because a sudden rise or drop in customer demand makes it difficult to coordinate objectives between a manufacturer and a retailer. Meanwhile, a QFC has been highlighted as an intensive method in response to this rapid change by gaining time for better observing the market demand before placing its final orders. The intention of this paper is twofold. First, we classify QFC’s articles into contract parameters, comparison and composition of QFC with other strategies and contract types, research models, and methods up to the present point. Second, we guide the future research directions and developments of QFC so that many researchers start easily approaching and studying it. We hope that our discovery from the review provides opportunities to spot gaps in the literature that could be accomplished and values for further future research directions.

Supply chain coordination with information design

AbstractWe consider the coordination of a supplier–retailer supply chain where, in addition to classical contract considerations, a supplier decides the adoption of an information structure (IS) for the supply chain, with a higher‐quality IS allowing the supply chain parties to obtain a more accurate demand forecast. Because a wholesale price contract cannot coordinate the supply chain due to misaligned incentives of supply chain parties, we explore what common coordinating contracts in the classical coordination literature can continue coordinating the supply chain with the IS adoption. Interestingly, our analysis appears to reveal the power of simplicity: some simple classical coordinating contracts (e.g., the buy‐back and revenue‐sharing contracts), though not designed with the IS consideration, still coordinate the supply chain, whereas other more complicated classical contracts (e.g., the quantity flexibility and sales rebate contracts) fail to do so. We derive a general condition for supply chain coordination and show that any contract with a newsvendor‐like transfer payment can coordinate the supply chain.

A Game-Theoretic Framework for Analyzing the Impact of Social Responsibility and Supply Chain Profitability

Supply chain collaboration plays an important role in profit maximization. Contract coordination is a successful strategy for collaboration and profit-sharing in supply chains. The study of contract coordination in supply chains under uncertainty and stochastic environmental conditions has attracted the attention of many researchers. We propose a single-period newsvendor model with one manufacturer and one retailer in the supply chains. The proposed model considers two variables, including order quantity and investment in corporate social responsibility, where the demand is stochastic and follows a normal standard distribution. The model considers quantity flexibility, advanced purchasing discounts (APDs), and buyback contracts under cooperative conditions. Numerical examples are used to exhibit the applicability of the model under various conditions, including the two-demand distribution and three coordination contracts. We demonstrate an ideal scenario where the APD contracting results in the most overall supply chain profit and increases for each supply chain partner.

Food waste recycling closed loop supply chain optimization through renting waste recycling facilities

• Cooperation of a food trading company and a peri-urban located recycling plant • Proposing a contract in a real food supply chain in order to reduce waste amounts • Recycling food waste by renting peri-urban located recycling facilities • Developing a quantity flexibility contract with standard and expedited lead times Optimization techniques in reverse logistics and closed-loop supply chains (CLSC) may effectively address food waste problem in urban areas. Motivated by recent advances in collecting/recycling food wastes through recycling supply chains, this study contributes to optimizing such a recycling channel in urban areas. We examine if renting waste-recycling facilities by a food trading company located in urban areas, where production/recycling processes are prohibited, is able to mitigate the problem. This paper examines a three-tier CLSC, including a trading company located in urban areas, a production plant located in peri-urban zones, and a food-waste-collector, in which food-waste is collected from restaurants/chain-stores for recycling purposes. The trading company rents waste-recycling facilities from the production plant in the peri-urban zones to carry out the relevant processes. To coordinate the channel, a novel Quantity Flexibility (QF) contract is developed. Results, based on a real case study in the meat products supply chain, show that profitability of the supply chain is increased using the proposed QF contract significantly (e.g., 30 percent increase in the food-waste-collector's expected profit). The findings from our developed models can help food supply chain managers to find cost-effective solutions for cooperating with other supply chain members. Our results show a Pareto-improvement outcome.

Strategies for achieving customer order flexibility – supplier perspective

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to develop a framework of strategies to achieving customer order flexibility in and related to the order-to-delivery (OTD) process. The purpose is also to investigate how companies prioritize various strategies to achieve customer order flexibility.Design/methodology/approachBased on a literature review, pre-tests and conceptual reasoning, a conceptual framework of strategies related to the order-to-delivery process was developed. The strategies were linked to the order quantity and delivery lead-time flexibility dimensions. This structure resulted in six groups covering enabling as well as remedial strategies. An empirical interview study of ten customer–supplier relationships was conducted.FindingsThe interviews identified additional strategies, thereby expanding the framework. The enabling strategies with the highest median values were “have continuous contact with the customer's purchaser” and “use safety stock of raw materials/semi-finished products”. The remedial strategy with the highest median was “re-plan/re-prioritize the order backlog”. In the delivery sub-process, it was more common to apply remedial strategies for delivery lead-time than for order quantities.Research limitations/implicationsThe developed framework is a contribution to the literature on operational flexibility in and related to the OTD process. It complements existing knowledge by taking a supplier perspective.Practical implicationsSuppliers can use the framework as a tool to understand and systematically achieve better customer order flexibility in and related to the OTD process. Customers can use the framework as a checklist for supplier evaluation and supplier development.Originality/valueFew identified studies include empirical data on customer order flexibility.

Are quantity flexibility contracts with discounts in the presence of spot market procurement relevant for the humanitarian supply chain? An exploration

Are quantity flexibility contracts with discounts in the presence of spot market procurement relevant for the humanitarian supply chain? An exploration

Retailer-run resale market and supply chain coordination

This study proposes strategies for full coordination of a supply chain when the retailer enables buyers not only to return their product after inspection but also to resell it as used at the store after partial consumption. In recent years, mega-retailers have added resale service to their conventional business of selling new products, which is called the retailer-run resale market. Prior literature shows from the retailer's perspective that the ultimate motive for running resale business is to reduce the volume of consumers' product returns. Nevertheless, there is a lack of studies on the retailer's resale business from the manufacturer's perspective. We adopt a manufacturer's perspective and derive strategies to motivate retailers to make decisions for the benefit of the entire supply chain in the presence of the retailer-run resale market using five commonly used types of contracts: revenue-sharing, buybacks, quantity flexibility, quantity discount, and two-part tariff. Ongoing digitalization and web security in retailing have provided a convenient environment for online transactions, which have emerged as a supply chain and become a staple for many shoppers. However, growing popularity of online shopping inevitably increases the volume of product returns because it lacks an opportunity to experience the product before purchase. Thus, an increasing number of online retailers have adopted a resale business unilaterally to reduce consumer returns. The study provides strategic guidelines for a manufacturer to induce such retailers to make decisions for joint profit maximization.

New Retailing Problem for an Integrated Food Supply Chain in the Baking Industry

As coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to spread, online consumption habits in China have changed significantly. Thus, the booming online-to-offline (O2O) food ordering and delivery industry via the online bakery have been changing customers’ food shopping behavior. This article proposes a comparison relying on advanced O2O strategy for a single-vendor-single-retailer integrated system. Three coordination mechanisms consist of revenue-sharing, buy-back, and quantity flexibility contracts have been employed for optimizing the order quantity. Replenishment strategies and temperature for the supply chain members are considered based on the new retailing framework. Herein, the authors suggest an algorithm for the computation of the optimal solution. Lastly, numerical examples and sensitivity analysis are also conducted to clarify the usefulness of the proposed model in the food supply chain. Sensitivity analysis revealed a number of managerial insights. For example, the results obtained under O2O operations can be compared with those obtained under online/offline operations (under various parameters settings) to determine an opportune moment for three coordination mechanisms.

The rational scope of using direct and multilevel logistics channels for material flow distribution (case study in Ukraine)

Constant raising the requirements for logistics service of end-consumer expand sales markets and economic relationships that are formed under conditions of uncertainty and instability of the environment, leading to the need to consider not only the logistics system of internal factors but also external. This issue is especially important for Commonwealth of Independent States that rebuilt to a market economy. Nowadays, the grocery logistics network distribution system that would fit for end-consumer and logistics systems owner simultaneously have not fully developed. On the one hand, consumers are looking for minimal cost, which can be provided by direct logistic channels, but minimal cost do not give flexibility in quantity and volumes or other services. On the other hand, the multilevel system provides high level of service and diversity in channel, but products are more expensive in it. Finding the balance between rational price and level of service for end-consumer and logistics system profits in period is been up-today issue in consumer-oriented logistics. The development of mechanisms makes it possible to assess the scale of the rational use of direct and multi-level logistics for the distribution of material flows, which was demonstrated with the numbering of participants in the logistics system in the current situation (external and internal factors). The paper considers the functioning of the system for delivering goods on a direct and multilevel distribution channel. An integrated approach to evaluate the efficiency of the functioning of the logistics system and the consumer had been used.

WITHDRAWN: Retailer-run Resale Market and Supply Chain Coordination

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Optimal Spot Trading Integrated with Quantity Flexibility Contracts

In this study, we consider a company that uses two channels for trading: long‐term contracts and spot markets. With a quantity flexibility long‐term contract, the buyer commits to purchasing at least as much as the minimum order quantity and is able to reserve capacity with the forward contract supplier up to the maximum order quantity in each period at a predetermined price. Through the spot market, the buyer can order or sell inventory at an uncertain future spot price without quantity limitations. A fixed setup cost is incurred in each instance of buying or selling in the spot market. This study considers very general inventory‐related (not necessarily convex) costs, and demand is random following a one‐sided Pólya distribution. We introduce a concept called “non‐( K 1, K 2)‐decreasing with changeovers” and characterize the optimal trading policy in the spot market. We show that the optimal policy can be characterized by five critical points. We also characterize optimal procurement from the contracted supplier under certain conditions. Two simple, yet efficient, heuristics that yield near‐optimal results in many cases are presented as well in order to calculate procurement quantities. Moreover, we show that our results also apply to uniform demand, which is not Pólya, and numerical tests assuming uniform demand are performed to discern which factors are most important and to gain managerial insights.