Analytical target cascading for multi-level supply chain decisions in cloud perspective

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to adopt a three-stage cloud-based management system for optimizing greenhouse gases (GHG) emission and marketing decisions with supplier selection and product family design in a multi-level supply chain with multiple suppliers, one single manufacturer and multiple retailers.Design/methodology/approachThe manufacturer purchases optional components of a certain functionality from his alternative suppliers and customizes a set of platform products for retailers in different independent market segments. To tackle the studied problem, a hierarchical analytical target cascading (ATC) model is proposed, Jaya algorithm is applied and supplier selection and product family design are implemented in its encoding procedure.FindingsA case study is used to verify the effectiveness of the ATC model in solving the optimization problem and the corresponding algorithm. It has shown that the ATC model can not only obtain close optimization results as a central optimization method but also maintain the autonomous decision rights of different supply chain members.Originality/valueThis paper first develops a three-stage cloud-based management system to optimize GHG emission, marketing decisions, supplier selection and product family design in a multi-level supply chain. Then, the ATC model is proposed to obtain the close optimization results as central optimization method and also maintain the autonomous decision rights of different supply chain members.

Probabilistic optimization of engine mount to enhance vibration characteristics using first-order reliability-based target cascading

Uncertainties cause tremendous failures, especially in large-scale system design, because they are accumulated from each of the subsystems. Analytical target cascading is a multidisciplinary design optimization method that enables the achievement of a concurrent and consistent design for large-scale systems. To address the uncertainties in analytical target cascading efficiently, we propose reliability-based target cascading combined with first-order reliability assessment algorithms, such as mean-value first-order second moment, performance measure analysis, and reliability index analysis. The effectiveness of the implemented algorithms was first demonstrated via a mathematical programming problem and then a practical engineering problem, involving automotive engine mount optimization, for minimizing both the difference between torque roll axis and elastic roll axis and the vibration transmissibility under mode purity requirements. The optimized design solutions are compared among three reliability assessment algorithms of reliability-based target cascading, and the uncertainty propagation with Gaussian distributions was quantified and verified. The probabilistic design results indicate that the first-order reliability-based target cascading methods successfully identify more reliable and conservative optimized solutions than analytical target cascading.