Quantitative Models in Supply Chain Management

Moreover, a wide review given by Terzi and Cavalieri (2004) on more than 80 papers about simulation in the supply chain context is used in this chapter. The main goal of this review is to determine which objectives simulation is used to solve the problems, which simulation models are more appropriate and useful for supporting the decision making in the supply chain.

Strategic Issues of Supply Chain Design and Management

A supply chain (SC) is composed of different facilities and also their definite roles with the aim of delivering goods or services to the customer in an effective way. Obviously the physical structure of each SC has an important role in its performance. In this chapter, the authors aim to describe SC network (SCN) design definition, classification and related issues to this subject, models and solution methods. At the end, the conclusion is provided.

Sustainability in Supply Chain Management

This chapter introduces sustainable development and its influences on supply chain management context. Sustainable development brings economical, environmental, and social concerns into managerial issues in supply chain. So working in sustainable environment will be more complex for managers who are now responsible to consider business functions from the three dimensions of sustainable developments. In this paradigm, managers seek the ways to avoid negative environmental and social impact of their operations and at the same time earn economical benefits. Furthermore, sustainability forces managers to deal with different stakeholders included in three dimensions of sustainable development. To proceed in this way, this chapter first presents environmental and social considerations and relevant stakeholders in supply chain management and offer some changes to manage the multi-dimensional and multi-stakeholder nature of the sustainable supply chain. Then, it discusses about the sustainability assessment frameworks to evaluate sustainability of a company as well as a supply chain.

Supply Chain Risk Management

During the past two decades, environments surrounding supply chains (SC) have faced many changes, which require SC managers to deal proactively with unknown situations and new risks. Therefore, one of the most important issues in supply chain management is managing uncertainties of a SC and mitigating negative effects of SC risks. In this chapter, an overview of supply chain risk management (SCRM) is given. First, fundamental concepts in SCRM are introduced. Next, sources of SC risks, SCRM and its process, and some robust SC risk mitigation strategies are introduced. Finally, an introduction to several mathematical models for SCRM is given.

Paradigms of Supply Chain Management

Supply chain management is a naturally difficult task due to participation of various economically independent companies. In turn, strategy planning and management processes in supply chain are more complicated than a single business. In the process of strategy formulation for a supply chain, it is necessary to consider benefit and abilities of all members. In this chapter, some models for supply chain strategy formulation are discussed, and the most applicable management paradigms of supply chain are investigated. In addition, initiatives, attributes, and appropriate conditions for implementing each paradigm are investigated. Hence, the purpose of this chapter is to give a viewpoint regarding philosophies and concept of supply chain management along with introducing and analyzing some paradigms and practices of supply chain management including lean, agile, leagile, resilient, and green paradigms.

Disruption in Supply Chain

Recent trends in the global business environment such as overwhelming globalization, short product life cycle, and cost reducing strategies have exposed various types of supply chains in the face of a great deal of uncertainties and risks. One of the main risks in supply chain is risk of disruption. Disruptions, which can derive from natural and man-made sources, have attracted the attention of academia, industry, as well as supply chain advisors. The importance of the topic becomes more vital when it is observed that prior planning for the disruption can significantly reduce the adverse consequences of disruption. Therefore, in the chapter, the authors would try to introduce the phenomenon of supply chain disruption along with its importance. Recent trends that greatly necessitate careful planning of supply chain disruption are presented, and lastly, different ways through which the adverse consequences of disruption can be mitigated are given to the readers.

CRM, SRM and Marketing in Supply Chain

The first goal of this chapter is to disclose different aspects of this customer-focused strategy, such as CRM definitions, goals, perspectives, and SCM and CRM integration features. But due to the continual needs of cutting costs, organizations realized the necessity of long term buyer-seller relationships, and they were forced to improve their supply chain and leverage their supply base. The key solution to this necessity is Supplier Relationship Management (SRM). After describing various aspects of CRM, therefore in the second part the different characteristics of SRM and the way going from CRM to SRM is being discussed.

Future Trends in SCM

The field of supply chain management (SCM) has experienced radical changes in its short life period. Originating from 1980 and 1990s management trends and techniques of operations management, passing process oriented and system oriented approaches in the 1990s, and now attracting the attention to behavioral approaches have all caused SCM to be largely vertiginous. So dealing with its future requires a more accurate method than common predicator fashions. Therefore, the chapter first considers SCM as a body of knowledge in which evolution is based on its theoretical foundation, and therefore, prevalent research paradigm(s), research methodological base(s) used by developers, and also real world challenges that motivate it. Consequently, the authors review current status of SCM from standpoint of the discipline’s theory, its conceptualization process, and most used research methods and approaches. Then the authors will be able to use its implications to adopt an appropriate model of philosophy of knowledge for scientific change and knowledge growth of SCM. This can be used as a guide to the future of supply chain management.

Complex Real-Life Supply Chain Planning Problems

Supply chain planning concerns the selection of strategies and methodologies to facilitate the optimal flow of material from raw material suppliers to end-users through procurement, production and distribution activities. Supply chain (SC) implementation has significant impacts on the financial performance of manufacturing and distribution companies. Developing real-life SC models with centralised planning naturally leads to complex models which are difficult to solve optimally. This chapter firstly presents a comprehensive review on the current literature of SC planning and optimisation and classifies the published models based on their complexity. Next, a mixed-integer non-linear formulation is presented for modelling complex real-life SC planning problems which accommodates the identified gaps in the current literature. Evaluation of the available tools and techniques for the optimisation of the proposed SC model will conclude this chapter.

Coordination in Supply Chain Management

The aim of this chapter is to review various perspectives on supply chain (SC) coordination issues and appreciate a range of coordination categories and mechanisms. The application of information technology in supply chain coordination (SCC) and the related cases are also studied in this chapter.