Supply Chain Nodes Research Articles

Fuzzy hierarchy analytic method of enterprise supply chain financial risk

Supply chain finance refers to one or more companies upstream and downstream of the industrial supply chain. According to the core company of each node, based on actual transactions, use customized and standardized financing transaction methods to control capital flows or control assets. The right to provide comprehensive financial products and services between supply chain nodes. This article only needs to introduce the financial risk analysis of the enterprise supply chain based on the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process. This paper proposes a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, which uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative risk assessment methods to assess financial risks, and designs a financial risk assessment system by constructing a fuzzy judgment matrix. It also proposes a comprehensive judgment of the financial risk assessment method. The impact of various risk factors on financial services provides a basis for risk prevention. The experimental results of this paper show that the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process evaluation method is relatively objective and can effectively evaluate the financial risks of the enterprise supply chain. From the weight analysis, it can be concluded that the technical risk weight value is 0.47, which accounts for the largest proportion and is the most important risk.

Japan’s Asian Competitors in Visegrád Countries

In this paper, I would like to review the economic activities of China and Korea based on their respective strategies and discuss the future economic activities of Japan, China and Korea in Visegrád countries.. China is expected to increase its investment to strengthen its economic ties with Visegrád countries. In view of the Japanese government’s cooperative posture with the U.S., some Japanese private companies have begun to restructure their supply chains, and Visegrád countries are likely to be attractive to them as important nodes in new supply chains. This is a time when Japan’s economic activities in Visegrád countries may expand. This will lead to a situation where Japan, China, and the ROK are all planning to develop their economic activities in the Visegrád countries.

Port Efficiency and Supply Chain: Implication for Bangladesh

Port and supply chains are closely connected to each other as a port is considered as an important node of the global supply chain. Sothe efficiency level of port has an impact on the performance of supply chain operations. Chittagong port is the principal seaport of Bangladesh and it provides a major gateway to the outside world. The cost of doing business is increasing as a result of the inefficiency in the main seaport of the country. In this paper, an effort has been taken to examine the efficiency of Chittagong Port and the causal factors of inefficiency. The impact of inefficiency at Chittagong port on the supply chain of Bangladesh has also been identified. To do this, at first a relationship has been built between port efficiency and supply chain in respect of Bangladesh.
 Relevant data has been gathered through extensive review of the literature, field surveys, interacting with top management of different business entities such as shipping agency, freight forwarder, logistics companies, exporter, importer as well as Government regulatory and monitoring bodies using both the structured and unstructured questionnaires.
 The study has revealed that theinefficiency at Chittagong port causes serious consequences on the supply chain of exporter and importer and lead to loss and disruption of trade and ultimately incur extra costs and time. This paper, therefore, recommends a substantial infrastructure improvement to Chittagong port along with other related measures in order to facilitate the supply chain of exporter and importer.

A linear model for optimal cybersecurity investment in Industry 4.0 supply chains

ABSTRACT This paper presents a mixed integer linear programming formulation for optimisation of cybersecurity investment in Industry 4.0 supply chains. Using a recursive linearisation procedure, a complex nonlinear stochastic combinatorial optimisation model with a classical exponential function of breach probability is transformed into its linear equivalent. The obtained linear optimisation model is capable of selecting optimal portfolio of security safeguards to minimise cybersecurity investment and expected cost of losses from security breaches in a supply chain. The new efficiency measures of cybersecurity investment are introduced: cybersecurity value and cybersecurity ratio. In addition, the proposed linear model has been enhanced for the Hurwicz-type, best–worst criterion to minimise a convex combination of the minimal and the maximal supply chain node vulnerability, under limited budget. The resulting compromise cybersecurity investment aims at balancing vulnerability over the entire supply chain, independent of cyberattack probabilities and potential losses by security breaches, thereby hardening the weaker critical nodes. The findings indicate a crucial role of intrinsic vulnerability, determined by the architecture of Industry 4.0 supply chain, and highlight ‘design for cybersecurity’ as an important emerging area of research.

Sustainability of an Activity Node in Global Supply Chains

Urban shrinkage is a remarkable phenomenon that cannot be convincingly explained by existing theories on urban growth and is closely linked to the global supply chain (SC) nodes in the labour market. This paper shows how a municipality in which an activity SC cell (production or service) is located as a node in the SC graph can be made more attractive for industrial activities and human resources, more sustainable, and less shrinking, through appropriate tax policies and investments in the infrastructure of the central places—cities where production or services are located. To this end, we developed the decision support model for the joint control of urban rightsizing by SC managers and local authorities. In the model we linked the extended material requirements problem (MRP) with a normalised asymmetric gravity model. The paper outlines how local authorities and institutions, when planning for the growing intensity of production or services, in a city where the number of workers is insufficient, should take into account the impact of taxation as well as investment in the infrastructure of a municipality, and not just net wages, in order to attract human resources. They need a decision support model for their negotiations on the rightsizing of the city. The objective was to develop a model of fiscal mechanisms in the interactive decision making processes of local authorities and SC managers to control the availability of labour in the city where production or services are running and need to grow because SC managers want to increase production or services but the available labour force is shrinking. A case study in Slovenia shows how local authorities and SC managers should work together to maintain a sustainable activity cell in a functional region of the urban agglomeration where this production or service is located. It models how to plan the rightsizing. Such an integrated policy best achieves the desired intensity of the supply chain, thereby avoiding the relocation of activities outside the region, which allows unsustainable flows of human resources and uncontrolled shrinking of a city or region.

The logistics of the short food supply chain: A literature review

The sustainability of food chains is an issue consumers, policy makers, researchers, food producers and suppliers are increasingly interested in. This interest is also confirmed by the considerable development of short food supply chain (SFSC) initiatives as an alternative to the globalised food chains typical of the contemporary food industry. However, while SFSCs have grown over the recent years, their logistics is still a challenging issue affecting their performance. Previous SFSC-focused literature reviews have neglected this particular aspect, concentrating primarily on the different forms of supply chains and the benefits and limitations associated with SFSC. The goal of this paper, instead, is to increase researchers’ and practitioners’ knowledge of the role and potential of logistics in improving the effectiveness and sustainability of SFSCs. This work, in fact, focuses on this specific and relevant aspect of SFSC and highlights its possible impact on SFSC development. From a logistics perspective, it identifies a series of actions to be implemented to effectively improve SFSC: to make environmental sustainable choices during all the phases of food distribution, to optimise the location of supply chain nodes, to improve the distribution route and restructure the supply chain. In addition to these actions, farmers are required to adopt an open approach to innovative distribution systems, vertical and horizontal collaboration as well as to cooperation with researchers. The paper's conclusions provide suggestions for future research development and underline the necessity to adopt a holistic and integrated approach and abandon a retrospective evaluation analysis in favour of a more dynamic and future-orientated attitude.

Research on the pricing of the double-competition closed-loop supply chain with uncertain recycling quantity

In order to solve the uncertainty impact of recycled products on pricing decision-making and financial intervention policy in double competition closed-loop supply chain, a pricing decision-making model is built by using the game theory and MATLAB numerical simulation. The model analyses and verifies the impact of the uncertain quantity upon the competition intensity, sale and recycling prices, supply chain node companies’ profits and social welfare, recovery rate of the closed-loop supply chain from four dimensions. The research results show that the recycling and repurchase prices are increasing when the quantity of recycled products shows significant fluctuation. The profit of social welfare and sellers are increasing, but manufacturer’s profit is decreasing, which means the uncertainty on recovery quantity directly affects the manufacturers, who play a leading role in implementing remanufacturing.

Agri-food risks and mitigations: a case study of the Brazilian mango

The aim of this study is to identify the main sources of risk and how different members in an international supply chain manage risk, considering contingency effects. A case study was conducted in an international mango supply chain, using multiple-unit embeddedness. Interviews were conducted with the staff of companies that represent four nodes in the mango export supply chain from Brazil to the USA. All interviews were also recorded and transcribed literally in NVivo software, and a coding system was developed based on the literature. The main results indicate that the exchange rate and dependence on a single transport mode are the main sources of risk for the mango supply chain. There are also differences in SCRM concerning the mitigation strategies adopted by the different members. Exporters and importers have better developed mitigation strategies compared to those of logistics operators and suppliers. The main mitigation strategy observed is collaboration.

ARDUINO BASED IN-DOOR AUTONOMOUS ROBOT USING BLUETOOTH SENSORS

In door autonomous robots has wide scope in the current world of Industry 4.0. With the advent of low-cost micro controller platforms like Arduino, it is easier to design and deploy inexpensive robotic solutions in Retail environments like physical stores and supply chain nodes like Distribution/Fulfillment centers. The paper discusses a low-cost Arduino based 4 wheeledrobot which can navigate in the given environment with Bluetooth sensors as position nods and obstacle avoidance built-in. Given the diversity and interconnectivity of Bluetooth sensors, we can implement robots moving with centimeter accuracy which is the need in partially closed environments. The robot should navigate its way to the destination which is fed by a remote server with resides on the premise to achieve lowlatency.

Trends and applications of resilience analytics in supply chain modeling: systematic literature review in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The increasingly global context in which businesses operate supports innovation, but also increases uncertainty around supply chain disruptions. The COVID-19 pandemic clearly shows the lack of resilience in supply chains and the impact that disruptions may have on a global network scale as individual supply chain connections and nodes fail. This cascading failure underscores the need for the network analysis and advanced resilience analytics we find lacking in the existing supply chain literature. This paper reviews supply chain resilience literature that focuses on resilience modeling and quantification and connects the supply chain to other networks, including transportation and command and control. We observe a fast increase in the number of relevant papers (only 47 relevant papers were published in 2007–2016, while 94 were found in 2017–2019). We observe that specific disruption scenarios are used to develop and test supply chain resilience models, while uncertainty associated with threats including consideration of “unknown unknowns” remains rare. Publications that utilize more advanced models often focus just on supply chain networks and exclude associated system components such as transportation and command and control (C2) networks, which creates a gap in the research that needs to be bridged. The common goal of supply chain modeling is to optimize efficiency and reduce costs, but trade-offs of efficiency and leanness with flexibility and resilience may not be fully addressed. We conclude that a comprehensive approach to network resilience quantification encompassing the supply chain in the context of other social and physical networks is needed to address the emerging challenges in the field. The connection to systemic threats, such as disease pandemics, is specifically discussed.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s10669-020-09777-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A Novel Mathematical Model for a Cloud-Based Drone Enabled Vehicle Routing Problem considering Multi-Echelon Supply Chain

In recent years, the product delivery system has faced a significant amount of changes with reducing cost and waiting time of last-mile delivery. Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, have the potential to deal with these issues effectively. This paper developed a novel mathematical formulation to investigate the optimum routing between various types of nodes in a multi-echelon supply chain, including third-party logistics companies (3PL), warehouses, and consumers. A conceptual model is represented in the paper to comprehend the readers better, and eventually, the novelty of the developed model is discussed further by explaining the concept of solving.

Research on Risk Management of Agricultural Products Supply Chain Based on Blockchain Technology

As the basic necessity of national life, agricultural products have become the basic elements of economic and social development. Because of the complexity and uncertainty of the internal and external environment, the supply chain of agricultural products has various risks, such as vulnerability and instability in the system structure. This paper analyzes the common structural model and risk factors of agricultural product supply chain, discusses the main factors of agricultural product supply chain risk factors, and combines the characteristics of decentralization and information encryption of block chain technology with the governance of each node of agricultural product supply chain. This paper puts forward the optimal analysis of agricultural product supply chain model construction and related node risk management under block chain technology.

Addressing sustainability information needs along supply chains

PurposeGaining a better understanding of various actors’ information demands and developing suitable approaches to fulfilling them is key in managing sustainability performance in supply chains. Sustainability thereby creates different levels of uncertainty and equivocality. This paper investigates the challenges in managing sustainability information flows along several nodes in the supply chain.Design/methodology/approachA multiple case study approach explores the various sustainability information needs along different nodes of supply chains. For this, three automotive triads are investigated, each comprising an original equipment manufacturer, a first-tier supplier and a second-tier supplier.FindingsThe results reveal that fulfilling information demands presents a substantial challenge to each of the three actors, albeit a different one in each case: whereas focal companies seek to figure out what information may be relevant to sustainability performance, their direct suppliers struggle to develop suitable approaches for enabling second-tier suppliers to generate and provide such information.Practical implicationsDepending on the level of uncertainty and equivocality, companies are supported in approaching sustainability information needs by applying individual or collective processing mechanisms. Decisions on such mechanisms and organisational structure can help to allocate resources according to the degree of challenges to achieve a fit between information needs and mechanisms.Social implicationsReducing uncertainty and equivocality related to sustainability information provides a powerful approach to improving the sustainability performance along supply chains.Originality/valueHaving identified sustainability information challenges, the paper analyses and develops a typology of potentially useful approaches.

Logistics Cost Control Method of the Core Enterprise of the Supply Chain

In view of the huge and complex supply chain system, this paper analyzes the main problems of insufficient cost control of supply chain and puts forward the theory that the core enterprise of supply chain should lead the whole supply chain cost control process. Firstly it analyzes the significant disadvantages on cost control for each stage in supply chain at present in our country, then based on these cost control defects, puts forward a method which the core enterprises of supply chain could apply to cost control process. Finally in combination of actual practice of different nodes in supply chain enterprises the paper extracts its cost control key points, and further explains that the core enterprise of supply chain should adopt this target cost control method, analyze all sections covering each node in supply chain, sort out its process with established standards, in pursuit of achieving cost control for each stage with strengthened interconnections and performance evaluation, to ensure sustainability and continuous improvement of the cost control method.

Adoption of practices for organizational effectiveness in healthcare supply chains

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the adoption of practices and investigating of commonalities/intensities between the factors for measuring organizational effectiveness (OE) across healthcare supply chains in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Design/methodology/approach System theory coupled with the Supplier-Input-Process-Output-Customer tool was applied to facilitate the linkage between different nodes of the healthcare chain. An exploratory approach was used to explore and measure the importance of various OE factors across various nodes of the healthcare supply chain. Data were collected using a two-stage questionnaire process addressed at personnel in the UAE’s healthcare sector. Findings The study identified that 62 OE factors in the health are supply chain. Of these, 15 are related to suppliers, 14 to the healthcare process, 12 to employees, 8 to patients and the community, 6 to government directives and 7 to branding. In total, 21 common factors were identified and clustered into groups based on commonalities and intensities. Research limitations/implications The study identifies the most important factors for healthcare organizations to achieve OE for different dimensions of operations or performance. These factors will provide valuable insights for decision makers in the sector; it will provide valuable insights to healthcare professionals and academia to investigate more on these factors. Originality/value While there is an increasing research interest in healthcare supply chains, this is the first study to investigate OE across the entire chain while also evaluating the importance of and commonalities in OE-enabling factors.

Development prioritization through analytical hierarchy process (AHP) - decision making for port selection on the one belt one road

Purpose This paper aims to attempt to investigate if the now-existing upstream Sost Dry Port in Gilgit-Baltistan and the prospective midstream Havelian Dry Port in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, both part of One Belt One Road (OBOR), are expected to compete against or complement each other in terms of port efficiency and location, and which of the two ports should first be developed in the wake of uninterrupted logistics flow of cargo on the Economic Corridor. Design/methodology/approach Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been used for multi-criteria decision making by the stakeholders. Five main criteria for transhipment port selection, ranging from port location, port efficiency, intermodal connectivity, port costs and cargo volume were used with three sub-criteria each. Findings This study demonstrates the results that favour physical infrastructural development initiatives prioritized for the Sost Dry Port in view of its strategic location as the upstream supply chain node on the Economic Corridor, imparting efficiency to the logistics flow. Practical implications Results of this study may assist policymakers in achieving goals like enhancing trade facilitation, reducing congestion and increasing cargo security on OBOR. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind that analyzes priority for immediate development intervention for either Sost or Havelian Dry Port, both located on CPEC – OBOR supply chain.

Developing information system to improve hinterland productivity and rubber multimodal transportation in South Sumatera Indonesia

There are many losses in nodes of the rubber supply chain. Rubbers are brought by boat to the Musi river estuary and sent to Mother Vessel near Singapore. If the nodes, where the rubber production is supposed to be collected, are not in function, then the rubber chain will be damaged. Farmers prefer to keep their rubber at home and wait for the middlemen to buy and collect them directly from their home. The productivity of rubber fell sharply as the price went down, and several big factories that have been shut down. This study aims to identify the characteristics of rubber trips, analyze the Nodes of the element of multimodal trips and multimodality per segment of rubber commodity trips, and make scenarios of improvement of the transport system for rubber in South Sumatera by means of information technology system. Transport data is analyzed by Matrices Analysis followed by VISUM program analysis. Interpretation of Land Image to recognize the area of rubber plantation is carried out using Image Landsat 8 and multispectral Analysis. The results will be the information system to improve hinterland productivity and multimodal rubber transportation.

Analysis of Uncertainty and Advanced Solutions in Enterprise Supply Chain Management Based on Game Theory

The so-called supply chain refers to the network chain structure formed around the core enterprises, namely suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, final customers, logistics service providers and even supplier suppliers and distributors. An effective supply chain system allows companies to plan and utilize resources from a global perspective. Through the construction of management strategies, management processes, partnerships and information systems, real-time monitoring and regulation of the operation of various business activities within the enterprise. Fundamentally speaking, whether the supply chain node enterprises establish cooperative partnership is a game problem between node enterprises. We need a lot of practical support, more efforts and research work. Only by establishing long-term strategic partnership among supply chain node enterprises can a win-win situation be created and higher profits be brought to enterprises. That is to say, to achieve collective rationality on the basis of individual rationality and to achieve optimal cooperation.

Incorporating resilience determinants in supply chain network design model

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a decision tool that enables supply chain (SC) architects to design resilient SC networks (SCNs). Two resilience design determinants are considered: SC density and node criticality. The effect of considering these determinants on network structures is highlighted based on the ability to resist disruptions and how SC performance is affected.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-integer non-linear programming model is proposed as a proactive strategy to develop resilient structures; design determinants are formulated and considered as constraints. An upper limit is set for each determinant, and resistance capacity and performance of the developed structures are evaluated. These upper limits are then changed until SC performance stabilizes in case of no disruption.FindingsResilient SCN structures are achieved at relatively low design determinants levels on the expense of profit and without experiencing shortage in case of no disruption. This reduction in profit can be minimized on setting counter values for the two determinants; relatively higher SC density with lower node criticality or vice versa. At very low SC density levels, the design model will reduce the number of open facilities largely leading to only one facility open at each echelon; therefore, shortage occurs and vulnerability to disruption increases. On the other hand, at high determinants levels, SC vulnerability also increases as a result of having more geographically clustered structures with higher inbound and outbound flows for each facility.Originality/valueIn this paper, a novel proactive decision tool is adopted to design resilient SCNs. Previous literature used metrics for SC density and node criticality to assess resilience; in this research, determinants are incorporated directly as constraints in the design model. Results give insight to SC architects on how to set determinant values to reach resilient structures with minimum performance loss in case of no disruption.

An integrated optimization model for natural gas supply chain

Natural gas is a green fossil fuel with the highest demand growth. Natural gas industry is composed of different sectors that form a complex and large supply chain. These sectors make their own decisions individually, resulting in implementation of non-optimal decisions. The aim of this study is to design and optimize an integrated natural gas supply chain (NGSC) formulated as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model. The model minimizes total cost and optimizes gas flow between supply chain nodes through pipelines, location-allocation of facilities and pipeline routes along with their capacities, number of pipelines, capacity expansion, extraction, production, storage, exports and imports. The proposed model is applied to a real world case study based on information derived from Iran's NGSC. Finally, the change effect of the most important parameters on the optimal solution is investigated and three actual scenarios are analyzed. The results indicate that the parameters of operating costs and demand volume have a significant effect on the optimal solution and the largest share of supply chain costs is related to operating expenditures. Moreover, the expansion of joint fields and zero import capacity will lead to a remarkable increase in total supply chain costs.