The effect of information systems on supply chain and performance of National Iranian South Oil Company (NISOC)

Accepting a kind of suitable strategies for supply chain achievement is one of the requirements of a manufacturing company.organizations to implement the different strategies of supply chain are required to use information systems.In this regard, this research respecting the different strategies of supply chain (lean and agile)and information systems strategies (efficiency and flexibility) attempt to examine the effect of these categories on supply chain performance and company.The methodology and the nature of this research is descriptive-survey. Sample population of this research is made up of nisoc’s managers and experts that are more than 2043 persons.By applying the cochrane’s formula,the sample population of this research determined as 231 persons that 222 questionaires completed and received. In this research, content validity and structure validity have been used and total questionnaire chronbach’s alfa is equal to 0/955 which indicates high level of reliability. because of measuring the effect of some dependent and indeppendent variables simultaneously, structure equations method (confirmation factor analysis) and pierson coefficient test have been used.Results indicate, in term of correational coefficient , that the effect of all variables over supply chain performance of company has been in a high level,but by applying the independent t correational test and pierson the main hypothesis and 3 sub hypotheses confirmed.Keywords: Information system strategy, lean supply chain, agile supply chain, supply chain performanc

A Theoretical Decision Making Framework on the Assessment of Leagility Index in a Supply Chain Management

Recent market globalization has enforced the manufacturing as well as service industries not only to ensure product variety, but also to make every effort for the lowest product price and the ability to respond quickly to the uncertain volatile marketplace. For successful survival in the highly competitive global business environment, manufacturing paradigm has shifted from ‘lean’ towards ‘agile’ and now towards the more advanced ‘leagile’ principles. Leagile approach is basically the combination of lean and agile principles in which leanness emphasizes on elimination of ‘wastes’ whereas agility introduces speediness, flexibility as well as responsiveness into the manufacturing system. Therefore, leagile concept explores the salient features of both lean and agile approaches which help manufacturing organizations (as well as service sectors) to gain competitive business advantage. The extent of leagility is indeed very difficult to compute due to existence of ill-defined (vague) performance indices whose evaluation is based on human judgment only. Since subjective human judgment often bears some kind of imprecision, uncertainty as well as vagueness; application of traditional decision making tools and techniques seem inappropriate in this context. In order to tackle such inconsistency and incompleteness in the said decision-making process; present work proposes a theoretical framework towards supply chain leagility assessment in fuzzy environment. Fuzzy numbers set theory, fuzzy operational rules and the concept of fuzzy degree of similarity have been explored to compute supply chain’s overall leagility index and finally, to identify ill(poor)-performing supply chain areas (barriers of leagility). A case empirical example has also been provided

The resilience of the food supply chain to pandemic COVID-19

Today’s business climate is subject to a variety of challenges associated with environmental turbulence that demands resilience to achieve sustainable business. The rare external disruption by a natural cause like a pandemic directly affects the organization’s ability to continue its operations from getting raw materials from suppliers to provide finished goods to market. The aim of this thesis is to understand the present resilience system in the food supply chain in the grain industry in response to a pandemic through a qualitative case study methodology. It focuses more on the risks which are external to the focal firm where the cooperative Lantmännen’s grain supply chain is the case. The results from empirical data that came from the semi-structured and in-depth interviews suggest that appropriate application and practices of the resilience ideas can make a supply chain robust and withstand any kind of environmental turbulence to attain business continuity. This thesis finds that how has the resilience practices by the leading grain industry of Sweden increased its capability of operating even in an unprecedented event like the Corona pandemic. Lantmännen’s existing structure, supply chain design and the combination of global and local supply chain strategies gave them an edge to manage their operation and supply chain in a good way. Moreover, its diversified business portfolio, existing risk management culture and intense collaboration with upstream and downstream supply chain actors supported their business continuation despite the disturbance created by the pandemic. This existing proactive resilience mechanism has backed their managers to be agile to take the reactive measures very quickly to adjust to the new situation of the pandemic. According to the literature, the supply chain resilience increases the ability of an organization to endure, adjust and grow even in the turbulent situation, findings on Lantmännen’s supply chain confirms the justification and validation of the effect of resilience practices

Improving supply chain management in construction: what can be learned from the aerospace industry?

In order to provide for controllable delivery, reliable lead times and efficient customer response, lean manufacturing and platform assembly practices play an important role in supply chains in the aerospace industry. The adoption of lean manufacturing practices ensures an efficient delivery of products to the market. Benefits from the development of platform strategies are a more reliable materials supply and an improved logistics control. The aerospace industry is characterized by a small number of major global players and many small ones. A major part of the design and production has been contracted out to suppliers. In this paper the basic similarities and differences between the construction and aerospace industry and supply chains are analysed. A comparative study of aerospace and construction supply chains is presented to indicate and discuss the applicability of supply chain management concepts to construction, and the improvement potential of these concepts regarding supply chain management in construction. It is concluded that in particular the practice of platform assembly is a fruitful concept to be applied in the construction industry

The relevance of outsourcing and leagile strategies in performance optimization of an integrated process planning and scheduling

Over the past few years growing global competition has forced the manufacturing industries to upgrade their old production strategies with the modern day approaches. As a result, recent interest has been developed towards finding an appropriate policy that could enable them to compete with others, and facilitate them to emerge as a market winner. Keeping in mind the abovementioned facts, in this paper the authors have proposed an integrated process planning and scheduling model inheriting the salient features of outsourcing, and leagile principles to compete in the existing market scenario. The paper also proposes a model based on leagile principles, where the integrated planning management has been practiced. In the present work a scheduling problem has been considered and overall minimization of makespan has been aimed. The paper shows the relevance of both the strategies in performance enhancement of the industries, in terms of their reduced makespan. The authors have also proposed a new hybrid Enhanced Swift Converging Simulated Annealing (ESCSA) algorithm, to solve the complex real-time scheduling problems. The proposed algorithm inherits the prominent features of the Genetic Algorithm (GA), Simulated Annealing (SA), and the Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC). The ESCSA algorithm reduces the makespan significantly in less computational time and number of iterations. The efficacy of the proposed algorithm has been shown by comparing the results with GA, SA, Tabu, and hybrid Tabu-SA optimization methods

Supply chains : ago-antagonistic systems through co-opetition game theory lens

Supply chain configurations, as hybrid governance structures, allow companies to be sufficiently integrated while keeping a certain level of flexibility. This enables them, on one hand, to converge towards common interests through the development of cooperation; and on the other hand, to diverge on their own interests by remaining in competition. This dynamics generates an ago-antagonistic system where both of these two concepts, namely cooperation and competition, simultaneously drive the supply chain. In the present article, this system is analyzed by using the co-opetition game theory developed by Brandenburger and Nalebuff (1996) in order to highlight the importance of such an apprehension of the supply chain approach.Supply chain; cooperation; competition; ago-antagonistic approach; co-opetition game theory

Co-operation as a response to a turbulent environment

The objective of this study was to find out 'how SMEs perceive and respond to a turbulent environment'. We define a turbulent environment as an environment in which customer needs are rapidly changing. Based on this interpretation, we are interested in to what extent SMEs perceive these changes in customer needs and how they respond to these changes - particularly focussing on strategy and cooperation. The main conclusion of our research is that SMEs co-operate mainly to reduce costs or improve the competitive position, not to meet customer needs more adequately. SMEs do not realise the advantages of seeking cooperation in order to share means and expertise in delivering a custom or tailor-made product or service to their customer. With respect to their suppliers, SMEs often lack countervailing power, which is an obstacle for co-operation. SMEs in the retail sectors are unable to convince their suppliers of the need to respond to changes quickly. Regarding co-operation with the clients, one might question whether existing customisation strategies are really demand-driven. This research does not support the impression that SMEs really know their customers' wishes and needs. On the contrary, some businesses intentionally do not adjust their products to changing customer needs.

Questioning the relentless shift to offshore manufacturing

The last 20 years has seen a relentless shift to offshore manufacturing as retailers chase ever-lower labor costs. The results of this strategy can now be evaluated and we propose that some adjustments are in order. We analyze the case of a North American apparel manufacturer (Griffin Manufacturing, Inc.) that has successfully emerged from a period of major change with a strong and strategic position in the apparel supply chain. This case study documents Griffin’s survival through evolution in capabilities, technology, and especially attitude. The Griffin case study suggests that keeping a portion of the manufacturing onshore at an agile, quick response factory is cost effective: it increases sales and improves margins. However, the new relationship between the parties is much more complex and requires commitment on both sides

Improving financial flows of a product claims handling process

Paper delivered at the 20th Annual Logistics Research Network Conference, 9th to 11th Sept 2015, Derby

Including design in e-manufacturing

This paper reviews major issues in the implementation of e-manufacturing, particularly the design aspects. It will examine recent progress, drawing out particular issues that are being addressed. Use will be made of the work by the author and colleagues to devise rule-based design and Internet-based control of machines to illustrate how these developments affect the integrated e-manufacturing environment. A dynamic Simulink model of the way e-manufacture is affected by overall design delays is used to evaluate general solutions for partial and complete e-based companies. These models show how changing to improved designs reduces WI