Supply Chain Management Issues Research Articles

Supply Chain Relationships in the Context of Innovative Processes

The paper deals with the issue of Supply Chain Management in the context of relationships between its members and possible innovations. It analyzes the dominating challenges in SCM and the impact they have on trends and future solutions. Supply chains in the future have to be more flexible and adaptive in order to be able to overcome problems stemming from complexity and increased risks. The analysis of secondary data leads to a conclusion that the future of SCM will be shaped by Big Data and technologies using them, knowledge management and talent scarcity avoidance as well as taking up innovative solutions in Green Supply Chain Management.

A novel chaotic imperialist competitive algorithm for production and air transportation scheduling problems

Although production and transportation scheduling problems are of two essential issues in supply chain management, they are rarely integrated. In this paper, we study the problem of production and transportation scheduling to minimize total cost of supply chain. The problem is mathematically modeled. Moreover, a novel metaheuristic based on an imperialist competitive algorithm is developed for solving the problem. The proposed algorithm is enriched by a chaotic map and two new operators to avoid from local optima. To tune the parameters, Taguchi experimental design is applied. For evaluation of the proposed algorithm, it is compared with an available genetic algorithm. Finally, using numerical experiments, the outperformance of the proposed algorithm is shown in both solution quality and performance robustness.

Analytical models for biopharmaceutical operations and supply chain management: a survey of research literature

While sophisticated analytical tools and models for operations and supply chain management are increasingly used in many industries, the biopharmaceutical industry lags many others in terms of applying these approaches. We survey the (relatively small number of) papers that explore the use of analytical models to address various strategic, tactical and operational issues in biopharmaceutical operations and supply chain management, discuss gaps in current knowledge, and identify opportunities to further extend the state-of-the art in this area.

Location-inventory and shipment decisions in an integrated distribution system: an efficient heuristic solution

Distribution network design is the most important strategic issue in supply chain management. In all the studies carried out in this area, materials always move from one level to the next, while in the flexible distribution system, materials flow between facilities in the same level (lateral transshipment). The purpose of this study is to consider the impact of lateral transshipment issues into location, allocation and inventory decisions of distribution centres located in the same level. The model was developed as a nonlinear mixed integer programming model and solved using memetic algorithm. To evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm in the large-scale competitive logistics system, the lower bound was provided by LP relaxation method. Finally, the effects of lateral transshipment on system costs, safety stock and warehouse load ratio index were considered. Results show that lateral transshipment may improve supply performance. [Received 13 August 2012; Revised 31 May 2013; Revised 10 August 2013; Revised 12 February 2014; Accepted 15 June 2014]

Alternative energy supply chain management issues: wind generation considerations in Ohio

The companies that involve in the sustainability in supply chain help regions and states like Ohio to establish an environment of sustainability. As a primary operations management decision, supply chain management (SCM), attempts at briefly examining best business practices were used to showcase selected manufacturing companies that have adapted their internal structures and processes to take advantage of the alternative energy industry. SCM specially deals with strategic initiatives that are designed to enhance relationships with a firm's marketing, logistics, production and operations management efforts. There are over 106 Ohio-based companies are doing business with the wind power industry and 63 companies in the state are part of the solar energy supply chain. These businesses are looking forward to sound policies that will support the domestic market for clean energy, creating more jobs and economic growth for Ohio. A discussion of a number of Ohio-based companies and the economic and legislative opportunities as well as managerial challenges are included in this case study.

A hybrid method of grey relational analysis and data envelopment analysis for evaluating and selecting efficient suppliers plus a novel ranking method for grey numbers

Purpose: Evaluation and selection of efficient suppliers is one of the key issues in supply chain management which depends on wide range of qualitative and quantitative criteria. The aim of this research is to develop a mathematical model for evaluating and selecting efficient suppliers when faced with supply and demand uncertainties. Design/methodology/approach: In this research Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) are used to evaluate and select efficient suppliers under uncertainties. Furthermore, a novel ranking method is introduced for the units that their efficiencies are obtained in the form of interval grey numbers. Findings: The study indicates that the proposed model in addition to providing satisfactory and acceptable results avoids time-consuming computations and consequently reduces the solution time. To name another advantage of the proposed model, we can point out that it enables us to make decision based on different levels of risk. Originality/value: The paper presents a mathematical model for evaluating and selecting efficient suppliers in a stochastic environment so that companies can use in order to make better decisions.

Designing of an intelligent self-adaptive model for supply chain ordering management system

One of the challenging issues in supply chain management is the coordination of ordering processes, especially in dynamic situations. In recent years, reinforcement learning algorithms are considered to be efficient techniques for solving such problems. In this paper, an agent-based simulation technique has been integrated with a reinforcement learning algorithm and has been applied to model a four-echelon supply chain that faces non-stationary customer demands. This approach leads to the development of a novel and intelligent simulation-based optimization framework, which includes a detailed simulation modeling of supply chain behavior. Finally statistical methods, including the Var technique, are used for the risk evaluation and sensitivity analysis have been provided to support the decision making process under uncertainty.

Grey decision model for supplier evaluation and selection in process industry: a comparative perspective

The supplier management is one of the key issues of supply chain management because the cost of raw materials and components constitutes the main cost of a product. Selection of right supplier to meet the production demand is a prime problem in all manufacturing and process industries. A critical part of the supplier selection process is the determination of the relative importance of each of the contributing factors. This work presents an alternative decision model to evaluate the relative performance of suppliers which has multiple outputs and inputs. In this study, the grey relational analysis which uses grey relational grade as performance index is specially adopted to determine the optimal selection of suppliers. Moreover, the principal component analysis and entropy methods are applied to evaluate the weighting values corresponding to various performance characteristics so that their relative importance can be properly and objectively described. The method has been employed to aggregate multiple performance measures for a real-world data set of suppliers of a medium-sized firm operating in the electroplating industry. The results reveal that grey relation analysis coupled with principal component analysis can effectively be used to obtain the optimal selection of suppliers. Hence, this study confirms that the proposed approach can be a useful tool to improve the performance of supplier selection process in process industries.

A Conceptual Model for Investigating the Possibility Effect of Environmental Uncertainty on the Relationship between Supply Chain Operational Capabilities and Business Performance

This paper expands previous research by modelling the contingency effect of environmental uncertainty on the relationship between supply chain operational capabilities (SCOC) and business performance. Previous research found that there is strong relationship between SCOC and business performance. However, the contingency effect of environmental uncertainty is not included. In addition, the last research was focused on SMEs, but similar study related to creative industries is rarely to find. Even, creative industries have similarities to SMEs. Therefore, focusing on creative industries and adding environmental uncertainty in different country (Indonesia) would enrich the generalization, especially the issue in supply chain management. This paper also contributes to provide guidance in terms of relationship among the constructs in theoretical model for the managers of creative industries.

Research on the Application of Power Enterprises' SCMM Model Based on Sets-Valued

With the market competition increasing of power enterprises, strengthen the supply chain management become more and more important. It has an important guiding significance to enhance the level and effect of supply chain management that study the issue of supply chain management and evaluation by using supply chain management maturity (SCMM). This paper makes a combination of supply chain management methods and the particularity of power enterprises, and using the theory of SCMM, to build a SCMM level evaluation system from three aspects of logistics, information flow and capital flow. On this basis, we use a method that combines set-valued statistics with triangular fuzzy number Lo evaluate. Finally, it proves that the SCMM level evaluation system is scientific and rational through examples study.

Easy access: a case study on rural marketing

Subject area Marketing management and marketing strategy, rural marketing, sales and distribution. Study level/applicability Students of business schools specialising in the area of marketing or rural marketing. Case overview The case focuses on the rural market. It deals with the alternative distribution channels adopted for last mile distribution among rural consumers of underdeveloped Odisha (India). The case discusses key issues pertaining to rural marketing, business viability, social issues and public sentiment.Easy access is an entrepreneurial venture by an erstwhile intellectual marketing professor of a premier B-school. The objective behind this initiative is multiple, viz., rural marketing, developing alternative distribution networks, women empowerment, etc. The case highlights that the business of Easy Access started with noble social objectives like women empowerment and developing a cost effective distribution network so that rural customers would be benefited. The case also highlights that the practices adopted by Easy access was not good enough to track & forecast demand effectively as well as the supply chain to replenish stock was not proper.Since the particular market is a backward region and there are number of Govt. schemes and people are given many things for free. People thought Easy Access is result of one of such schemes. Also there were social issues of improper address and mismatch identity (as mentioned in the case) etc.So the issues of demand forecasting and supply chain management along with social issues resulted in financial loss and thus the viability of business venture (Easy Access) is a concern. The social objectives associated with this venture are also at stake or at danger because of financial loss. Expected learning outcomes The case provides insights into the marketing concepts like rural marketing, marketing strategy in emerging markets and sales and distribution. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Road-mapping the business potential of sustainability within the European manufacturing industry

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore the required changes, outline business potential and envisage the key steps that a networked manufacturing industry needs to take to reach more sustainably performing manufacturing in the future. Design/methodology/approach – The paper utilises a visionary road-mapping approach to study the required changes and the business potential related to sustainable development in the manufacturing industry. Findings – The results were summarised in three sub-roadmaps empowerment of stakeholders, increase efficiency and creation of new performance criteria. On the basis of the summary of the sub-roadmaps, the framework was configured to describe the opportunities and challenges of sustainable business development in the European manufacturing industry. Research limitations/implications – A clear implication of this study is that a more system-oriented approach, new models for collaboration between network actors and transparently shared network-level KPIs are required before further steps towards a sustainable manufacturing industry can be taken. In addition, sustainability-driven business models are required to specify these changes concretely. Practical implications – The presented sub-roadmaps and framework summarising them could provide new insights to business practitioners exploring business potential of sustainability. Social implications – Understanding about the road-mapping process as tool that enables interaction and envisioning between different stakeholders could also have social implications supporting shared industry-level learning processes. Originality/value – Studies of sustainability within the manufacturing industry have focused mainly on green issues in supply-chain management or corporation-level governance models and reporting practices. The paper presents a broader view of sustainable development and recognises networked business as part of the solution.

Hybrid NSGA-II algorithm on robust multi-objective inventory management problem

Risk management and inventory cost control are key issues in supply chain management. Based on an ( r, Q) strategy, this paper formulates a multi-layer multi-period stochastic inventory problem as a robust multi-objective model. The novelty lies in the consideration of both perturbed variables and stochastic demand in the model. The goal is to minimize the expected cost and the risk measured by conditional value at risk (CVaR). To solve this model, we propose a hybrid Non-Dominated Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II) where a polynomial time algorithm is designed to obtain the optimal CVaR for a given ( r, Q). Moreover, a local search method is tailored for the NSGA-II to improve solutions. This hybrid algorithm can significantly increase the number of optimal solutions and decrease the inventory cost. Numerical results validate the effectiveness of our robust multi-objective model and the hybrid algorithm.

Contract type and decision right of sales promotion in supply chain management with a capital constrained retailer

From the practices of Chinese consumer electronics market, we find there are two key issues in supply chain management: The first issue is the contract type of either wholesale price contracts or consignment contracts with revenue sharing, and the second issue is the decision right of sales promotion (such as advertising, on-site shopping assistance, rebates, and post-sales service) owned by either manufacturers or retailers. We model a supply chain with one manufacturer and one retailer who has limited capital and faces deterministic demand depending on retail price and sales promotion. The two issues interact with each other. We show that only the combination (called as chain business mode) of a consignment contract with the manufacturer’s right of sales promotion or a wholesale price contract with the retailer’s right of sales promotion is better for both members. Moreover, the latter chain business mode is realized only when the retailer has more power in the chain and has enough capital, otherwise the former one is realized. But which one is preferred by customers? We find that the former is preferred by customers who mainly enjoy low price, while the latter is preferred by those who enjoy high sales promotion level.

Enhanced assessment of a supplier selection problem by integration of soft sets and hesitant fuzzy linguistic term set

Selecting the most appropriate supplier is a key issue in supply chain management and is linked to the success of the entire supply chain. Supplier selection is a multiple-criteria decision-making problem that has qualitative and quantitative factors. The traditional method by which this is calculated adopts a precise value or single linguistic terms to represent attribute data. However, real-life situations have many uncertainties and imprecise or missing data with regard to supplier selection. Moreover, experts equivocate between several values in assessing attribute data in real-world situations. These factors increase the difficulty selecting suppliers, causing decision-makers to make incorrect choices. To solve this issue, we present an integrated approach, using a soft set and hesitant fuzzy linguistic term set, for selecting the appropriate supplier in the supply chain. A practical example of liquid crystal display module supplier selection is presented to illustrate the proposed approach, the results of which are compared with those of the arithmetic average method and hesitant fuzzy linguistic term set method. The proposed approach effectively solves the problems of incomplete attribute data and expert hesitation in assessing attribute data.

물류비용을 고려한 공급사슬 유연성 구조에 관한 연구

As productions and deliveries of multiple products to multiple marketplaces have been increasingly popular, supply chain flexibility, which refers to an ability to deal with demand and capacity uncertainty, becomes an important issue in supply chain management. However, logistics costs have been largely neglected in the literature on supply chain flexibility structure. In this paper, we propose mathematical models to investigate the impact of the logistics costs on the optimal flexibility structure. We also conduct a simulat ion study and observe that logistics costs have a sig-nificant impact on the decision on supply chain flexibility structure. Such conclusion is also supported by the case study of a global car manufacturer, Honda Motors.

Selecting and full ranking suppliers with imprecise data: A new DEA method

Supplier selection, a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem, is one of the most important strategic issues in supply chain management (SCM). A good solution to this problem significantly contributes to the overall supply chain performance. This paper proposes a new integrated mixed integer programming ‐ data envelopment analysis (MIP‐DEA) model for finding the most efficient suppliers in the presence of imprecise data. Using this model, a new method for full ranking of units is introduced. This method tackles some drawbacks of the previous methods and is computationally more efficient. The applicability of the proposed model is illustrated, and the results and performance are compared with the previous studies.

공급망 내 교섭지위와 기업 간 거래관계에 관한 실증연구

공급망 내에서의 교섭지위와 신뢰는 전략적으로 매우 중요한 이슈임에도 불구하고 교섭지위가 신뢰에 미치는 영향에 대해서는 논란이 많다. 본 연구는 교섭지위 및 신뢰에 관한 이론적 배경을 토대로 연구가설을 설정하고 공급망 참여기업에 대한 설문조사를 통해 타당성을 평가하는데 목적이 있다. 특히 교섭지위의 다양한 위상이 신뢰에 미치는 영향을 비선형함수로 설정하고 이를 반응곡선모형을 통해 분석해 본다는 데에 방법론적 차별성이 있다. 127개 기업의 설문조사 데이터를 통계적으로 분석한 결과, 구매기업이 인식하는 교섭지위는 공급자에 대한 신뢰요인에 대해 비선형적 영향을 미친다는 결과를 도출할 수 있었다. 본 연구는 공급망 내에서의 신뢰와 거래관계에 대한 통합적 시각을 제시했다는 측면에서 의의가 있을 것이다. Bargain position and trust are core issues in supply chain management, yet the effect of bargain position on trust remains to be undetermined. The purpose of this research is to present theoretical and methodological hurdles for the relationship among various bargain positions and trust, and develops a set of hypotheses about the asymmetric effect of bargain position on trust in supply chain network. An analytical tool to analyze nonlinear effects on a response surface is introduced. Based on the data collected through a survey of firms participating in Project Supply chain, a set of hypotheses is tested. The analysis results support the prediction that the bargain position perceived by the buyers have asymmetric effects on trust toward supplies, and provide more fine-grained accounts on the relationships among bargain power, bargain position and trust in a supply chain network.

Optimal pricing and ordering policy for an EPQ inventory system with perishable items under partial trade credit financing

Achieving effective coordination among suppliers and retailers has become a pertinent research issue in supply chain management. A profitable decision policy between a supplier and the retailers can be characterised by an agreement on the trade credit scenario such as permissible delay in payments. Usually, in real life business, we observe that the demand depends on the selling price rather than the constant demand and supplier is willing to provide the retailer a full trade credit period for payments and the retailer just offers the partial trade credit period to his/her customers. In this paper, we develop an EPQ-based model for perishable items under retailer’s partial trade credit policy and price dependent demand. The purpose of this paper is to maximise the profit by determining the optimal selling price and replenishment time. Mathematical theorems are developed to determine optimal inventory policy for the retailer and numerical examples are given to illustrate the theory. We also obtain a lot of managerial phenomena.

Vehicle routing problem in real case application

The delivery of goods from a warehouse to local customers is important and a practical issue in supply chain management. Current customers request improvement from day to day. If the total demand is greater than the whole capacity of the internal fleet, the use of the external carrier becomes necessary. Thus; it may be more economical to use an external carrier instead of an internal vehicle to serve one or very few customers. In this work, we attempt to model this company problem. We first try to assign vehicles to warehouse and determine the private fleet size needed at each one by taking into account the interventions of preventive maintenance. Then we develop a second model that routes this limited truck from two central warehouses to customers’ with the option of using an external carrier.