Supplier Selection by the Pair of AR-NF-IDEA Models

Supplier selection is the process by which suppliers are reviewed, evaluated, and chosen to become part of a company’s supply chain. To select the best suppliers in the presence of cardinal data, ordinal data, nondiscretionary factors, and weight restrictions, this paper proposes a new model considering all of these assumptions. A numerical example demonstrates the application of the proposed method.

Management of Logistics Planning

Logistics problems are gradually becoming more complex and a better understanding of logistics management as a subject is a key to deal with the new challenges. A core element of logistics management is logistics planning, which substitutes for low customer service levels, high waste, and the use of buffers and slacks in the execution of logistic activities. Furthermore, the availability of information and problem-solving capabilities are established as the core parts of logistics planning. Based on this, in this paper, a conceptual model for the management of logistics planning is proposed and discussed. In this regard, the model is built on ideas from microeconomics.

A New Look at Selecting Third-Party Reverse Logistics Providers

The use of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in many fields is based on total flexibility of the weights. However, the problem of allowing total flexibility of the weights is that the values of the weights obtained by solving the unrestricted DEA program are often in contradiction to prior views or additional available information. Also, many applications of DEA assume complete discretionary of decision making criteria. However, they do not assume the conditions that some factors are nondiscretionary. To select the most efficient third-party reverse logistics (3PL) provider in the conditions that both weight restrictions and nondiscretionary factors are present, a methodology is introduced. A numerical example demonstrates the application of the proposed method.

Information Technology Implementation Prioritization in Supply Chain

The increasing rate of technology growth has resulted in decrease in cost of information. These technologies are helpful in coordinating the activities resulting in effective management of the supply chain. Literature shows that the use of Information Technology (IT) plays an important role in managing the processes of SCM. This has resulted in increasing use of IT in SCM. The computerization of SCM processes, if implemented in one go may result in failure. IT implementation prioritization in supply chain is a major issue before the planner as there is no clear cut formula to solve this problem. This paper considers components of SCM like material management, purchase management, production management, logistics and distribution and customer interface for IT implementation prioritization. Two multi-criteria decision making methods (MCDM) viz. analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and a technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) are used in this paper. The novelty of the paper lies in integration of AHP and TOPSIS methods for IT implementation prioritization. The weights of the criterions and the alternatives are calculated using AHP method which is used as an input for TOPSIS analysis for prioritization of IT implementation.

Enterprise Applications for Supply Chain Management

Although many companies have implemented ERP systems to track and share information across cross functional business processes, they often supplement them with legacy, custom, or best of breed applications to support supply chain execution and management. This article offers a framework for understanding all types of enterprise applications that support the supply chain. In this study, the authors organize these applications, define acronyms, and describe the various types of systems that make up an information infrastructure for supply chain management.

An Automated Supply Chain Management System and Its Performance Evaluation

The MIDAS system is an automated supply chain management system that enables customers, manufacturers, and suppliers to cooperate over the Internet. MIDAS aims to achieve high customer satisfaction by supporting the build-to-order customization model and to reduce inventory carrying costs and logistics administration costs at the manufacturer by supporting the just-in-time manufacturing model. It allows a manufacturer to choose from the MIDAS Registry, suppliers of components, and negotiate based on the prices, availability, and delivery times of those components. The manufacturer can use one of several strategies to aggregate customers’ orders before processing them, and one of several strategies to accumulate suppliers’ quotes before deciding on a particular supplier. The paper presents an evaluation of these strategies in terms of the customer’s satisfaction, as measured by the customer response time, and the manufacturer’s gain, as measured by the number of orders aggregated or the best price ratio.

Design and Development of an e-Platform for Supporting Liquid Food Supply Chain Monitoring and Traceability

In this paper, the deliverables of a research project are presented, which aims at the development of a web-based platform capable of supporting the traceability of liquid products like milk, wine and olive oil. First, it includes the design of a supply chain reference model and the identification of the data required for the efficient operation of the traceability system. The main elements of the proposed model defined in this paper are the entities, stages, events, and processes. The reference model consists of three distinct phases that represent stages of real-life supply chains. Each of these phases is defined by certain interactions between the above basic elements. Additionally, the proposed e-platform is based on the above reference model aiming to follow and register the production and distribution processes of the raw materials, semi-finals, and final products that are used in the examined industry.

Supply Chain Dispute Resolution

This paper examines how supply chain conflicts across domestic and international jurisdictions arise and become resolved given that conventional conflict resolution tribunals cannot effectively settle fast enough to serve the needs of supply chain partners. Observations from the field should guide practitioners, and in combination with information technology, may lead to best practice rules in dispute resolution. For this study, the Delphi Method was selected, in which a panel of 14 experts participated in three rounds of successive surveys over a one-year period. Survey data was collected by mail as well as via telephone conversations and interviews, while under the Delphi method, the content of the second questionnaire was derived from the responses of the first questionnaire. All participants were supply chain experts in the United States from eight different industrial sectors, and none of the participants interacted with one another. End results show that supply chain’s relationships are very private trade arrangements and that disputes arise, predictably, from common performance criteria such as quality, timely delivery and payment issues.

The Strategic Role of Human Collaboration in Supply Chain Management

Supply chain performance is often equated with acquiring the best technology or process. However, current studies suggest that supply chain performance also requires human collaboration. To change conventional thinking, this paper proposes a holistic approach to supply chain management (SCM), clarifies the forces that facilitate human collaboration, and identifies the steps management can take to create a more collaborative network.

Simulation of Inventory Control System in a Supply Chain Using RFID

This paper employs a simulation model in a Supply Chain Management (SCM) system. This study is one of the first to present simulation model of inventory control system in supply chain management using barcode and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). The main objective of this model is to compare two inventory systems in a supply chain, one using RFID, versus the barcode. The model will help company to consider moving from a barcode system to the RFID application. A quantitative analysis based on a simulation model is developed. The model runs for both systems using ARENA simulation software with a comparison between the two systems. Furthermore, the simulation model is tested by applying three different types of demand for both scenarios. The results have shown that regardless of demand distribution pattern and customer order rate, the outcomes of the model are consistent and provide promising RFID technology adoption to improve inventory control of the entire supply chain system. The installation and unit cost of RFID implementation were estimated and considered to be the main barrier. Such model can offer the policymakers insight into how RFID might improve SCM system performance. Additional test has been conducted for demand with normal and triangular distributions using real data provided by ABC-Dubai Company. The results obtained from running the two models for these distributions are consistent with the original results.