Study on Quality Prediction Technology of Manufacturing Supply Chain

Supply chain quality is the assurance of product quality in its full life-cycle. Although supply chain quality control is a hot topic among researchers, supply chain quality prediction is actually an important but unsolved problem in manufacturing industry. In this paper, an approach of manufacturing supply chain quality prediction based on quality satisfaction degree is proposed to control supply chain better, in order to help ensure product quality. Supply chain quality prediction 3D model and model based on customer satisfaction and process control are established firstly. And then technologies used in quality prediction are studied, including quality prediction index system established on Expert scoring -AHP and prediction workflow built on ABPM. Finally an example is given to illustrate this approach. The customer satisfaction prediction result of supply chain quality can help supply chain management, and the quality prediction software system can make it easier, which provides a new direction for the product quality control technology research.

A Literature Review of the Emerging Field of IoT Using RFID and Its Applications in Supply Chain Management

The Internet of Things (IoT) envisions an ecosystem where smart and interconnected objects can sense surrounding changes, communicate with each other, process information and take active roles in decision making. Optimizing supply chain performance is a primary concern of manufacturing and logistics organizations. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is helping organizations to build automated and interconnected smart environment by object identification and tracking, motivating the first step towards an IoT-enabled world. This chapter attempts to understand extant literature studying applications of RFID in implementing the IoT in supply chain management. We categorize extant literature, firstly, based on research methodology and secondly, based on supply chain processes. We find that presently academic activity is around conceptualizing the usability of RFID in the IoT with limited analytical and empirical evidence. Supply chain processes such as demand planning, procurement, retail shelf space management and product returns are prospective areas for interesting future research.

Operations Research in Healthcare Supply Chain Management Under Fuzzy-Stochastic Environment

Operations research is for mankind in almost all aspects of our life. Applying the scientific method to the management of organizations, industry, government and other enterprises play a vital role in OR. It is used to increase productivity, to improve customer service, to improve quality and to reduce costs. Healthcare has attracted a great attention of governments in order to provide sufficient health services to the people. The provision of healthcare is very complicated and very responsible, that the right drug to the right people at the right time and in good condition to fight the disease. Today, the importance and significance of planning in healthcare can hardly be over emphasized when providing proper and adequate service continues to be a key concern of most countries. Operations research provides a wide range of methodologies that can help health care systems to significantly improve their operations. It helps to solve approximately all the problems involved in healthcare with its useful modeling techniques.

Managing Collaborative Relationships in Third Party Logistics

Some supply chain management researchers have realized the potential of collaborative activities for enhancing supply chain performance while other researchers have explored the positive impact of relationship quality on supply chain performance. To date, however, no empirical research has integrated these two research streams. Drawing upon social exchange theory, the authors propose a holistic research framework to explore the relationships among collaborative activities, the inter-organizational relationship quality, and supply chain performance. Specifically, they examine the mediating effect of relationship quality on the association between collaborative activities and supply chain performance. The research model is then tested using survey data (n=219). The authors' results illustrate a positive impact of both collaborative activities and relationship quality on enhancing supply chain performance. Moreover, this paper also supports the hypothesis that relationship quality mediates the relationship between collaborative activities and supply chain performance in third party logistics.

Supply Chain Relationships

The evolving field of supply chain management is rooted in the premise that traditionally independent firms need to work together in order to achieve supply chain success. This article outlines supply chain collaboration, which is a critical strategy for the field of supply chain management. While firms have traditionally operated in a manner that only considers their own well-being, a transition is occurring where open market relationships are diminishing and cooperation, coordination, and collaboration are becoming much more common. There are several key dimensions of collaboration that serve as drivers to its success, and firms that engage in these activities should experience closer relationships with channel partners and ultimately achieve higher levels of success. While this issue has been thoroughly covered in the logistics and supply chain management literature, its limited implementation and lack of widespread success provides evidence that the topic should continue to be a focal point in future research.

Networks Collaboration in Wine Sector SME

Collaboration between companies, especially for SMEs, can increase their ability to compete in new global markets. The emergence of new wine-producing countries over recent decades allows to evaluate its impact on the performance of a collaborative supply chain in countries with wine production tradition. This chapter describes the collaboration in the interface wine-grower/wine maker in a Portuguese wine region (Setúbal Peninsula). It reveal that intensification of collaboration between wine companies could increase their competitiveness in the domestic and the international markets, due the benefits it endorses. It also exposes some factors that stand out as conditioners to the operationalization of a deep collaboration, restricting it to just a few activities. The results of a case study performed suggested that the wine industry structure and the product characteristics are factors that negatively influence the intensity and the extension of collaboration. Trust is the intangible element that stands out as critical to the intensity of collaboration.

Competing Through Logistics Management

In the past 10 years, e-commerce and e-retailing have developed rapidly in China, the largest emerging country. Due to the increasingly more competition in this industry, a fast and reliably delivery is important to win customer satisfaction. Despite of the fact that many e-retailing companies are running virtual network by outsourcing logistics to third parties, there is also a trend for companies to establish their own logistics channels. In fact, self-owned logistics can be an effective approach of marketing and customer relationship development, and thus provide competitive advantage. This chapter focuses on how Chinese e-retailing companies compete through logistics management. It starts with an introduction of e-retailing and logistics management from practice and literature perspectives. Then, there are cases studies into successful Chinese re-retailing companies with a highlight on their logistics management models and customer satisfaction based on initial survey. Further discussion will address the critical issues of logistics management in e-retailing.

Improving Construction Supply Chains through Collaborative Modelling, a case of South Africa

This chapter report on some of the challenges faced and successes achieved during the construction of the recently completed Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) headquarters in South Africa. Qualitative interviews where conducts with five (5) professionals which were part of the construction supply chain team that completed the DEA project in South Africa. Findings summary were that the South African construction industry exists in a very dynamic and volatile environment with common challenges as evident in other countries. This challenge, necessitates the use of collaborative means of managing the various phases of the supply chain. It was also found that the use of collaborative models such as Public Private Partnership (PPP) can prove rewarding when stakeholders involved in a project have an understanding of the model and its dynamics. This chapter contributes to the use of PPP collaborative models in construction project delivery in South Africa.

Factors Affecting Willingness of Industries to Adopt Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

This research examined the willingness of businesses and industries to adopt RFID. It was postulated that motivation to adopt RFID is influenced by the technological context, organizational factors, and perceived benefits of using RFID. Data was collected from Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals members using a 19-question web-based survey. Relative advantage that firms can achieve and the perceived benefits in improving product quality and information sharing along with better traceability in the supply chain were significant predictors of RFID adoption. Within the technological contexts, the visible obstacles of RFID adoption through quality of transmission and reliability, understanding of overly high investment costs, and importance of the privacy concerns were all significant. The IT readiness of a firm was also a significant predictor of RFID adoption in the organizational factor, however the size of an organization was not at all linked to the RFID adoption decisions. The results point to a number of important conclusions that are informative for various business and industries that might be contemplating to adopt RFID technology in their operations.

Selection of Transportation Channels in Closed-Loop Supply Chain Using Meta-Heuristic Algorithm

This article presents a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) network design problem consisting of both forward and reverse material flows. Here, a four-echelon single-product system is introduced in which multiple transportation channels are considered between the nodes of each echelon. Each design is analyzed for the optimum cost, time and environmental impact which form objective functions. The problem is modeled as a tri-objective mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model. The cost objective aggregates the opening cost (fixed cost) and the variable costs in both forward and reverses material flow. The time objective considers the longest transportation time from plants to customers and reverse. Factors of environmental impact are categorized and weighed using an analytic network process (ANP) which forms the environmental objective function. A genetic algorithm (GA) has been applied as a solution methodology to solve the MILP model. Ultimately, a case problem is also used to illustrate the model developed and concluding remarks are made regarding the results.