Towards A National Agribusiness System: A Conceptual Framework

This paper examines today's challenges to the agribusiness sector. Through the Resource-Based View approach, we explore the potential roles and linkages between national public policies and local strategies in order to enhance the competitiveness and sustainability of a national agribusiness system. The main goal is to achieve a strategic alignment between the actions of multiple stakeholders, like firms, research centers, consumers, government, and the society in general. The essence of the paper is synthesized in a framework, which highlights the need for coordination of agribusiness systems by a National Strategy.Agribusiness,

Integrated production quality and condition-based maintenance optimisation for a stochastically deteriorating manufacturing system

This paper investigates the problem of optimally integrating production quality and condition-based maintenance in a stochastically deteriorating single- product, single-machine production system. Inspections are periodically performed on the system to assess its actual degradation status. The system is considered to be in ‘fail mode’ whenever its degradation level exceeds a predetermined threshold. The proportion of non-conforming items, those that are produced during the time interval where the degradation is beyond the specification threshold, are replaced either via overtime production or spot market purchases. To optimise preventive maintenance costs and at the same time reduce production of non-conforming items, the degradation of the system must be optimally monitored so that preventive maintenance is carried out at appropriate time intervals. In this paper, an integrated optimisation model is developed to determine the optimal inspection cycle and the degradation threshold level, beyond which preventive maintenance should be carried out, while minimising the sum of inspection and maintenance costs, in addition to the production of non-conforming items and inventory costs. An expression for the total expected cost rate over an infinite time horizon is developed and solution method for the resulting model is discussed. Numerical experiments are provided to illustrate the proposed approach

A production inventory model with exponential demand rate and reverse logistics

The objective of this paper is to develop an integrated production inventory model for reworkable items with exponential demand rate. This is a three-layer supply chain model with perspectives of supplier, producer and retailer. Supplier delivers raw material to the producer and finished goods to the retailer. We consider perfect and imperfect quality products, product reliability and reworking of imperfect items. After screening, defective items reworked at a cost just after the regular manufacturing schedule. At the beginning, the manufacturing system starts produce perfect items, after some time the manufacturing system can undergo into “out-of-control” situation from “in-control” situation, which is controlled by reverse logistic technique. This paper deliberates the effects of business strategies like optimum order size of raw material, exponential demand rate, production rate is demand dependent, idle times and reverse logistics for an integrated marketing system. Mathematica is used to develop the optimal solution of production rate and raw material order for maximum expected average profit. A numerical example and sensitivity analysis is illustrated to validate the model

Incorporating machine reliability issue and backlogging into the EMQ model - Part I: Random breakdown occurring in backorder filling time

This study is concerned with determination of the optimal replenishment policy for economic manufacturing quantity (EMQ) model with backlogging and machine reliability issue. Classic EMQ model does not consider nonconforming items generated during a production cycle, nor does it deal with the machine breakdown situation. It is noted that in manufacturing system when back-ordering is permitted, a random machine failure can take place in either backorder filling time or in on-hand inventory piling period. The first phase of this study examines the aforementioned practical issues by incorporating rework process of defective items, scrap and random machine failure taking place specifically in backorder satisfying time into the EMQ model. The objective is to determine the optimal replenishment lot-size that minimizes the overall production-inventory costs. Mathematical modelling and analysis is used and the renewal reward theorem is employed to cope with the variable cycle length. Theorem on conditional convexity of total cost function is proposed and proved. The optimal lot size for such a real-life imperfect manufacturing system is derived. A numerical example is given to demonstrate its practical usage

Optimizing the integrated economic production quantity for a stochastically deteriorating production system under condition-based maintenance

This paper proposes a new integrated economic production quantity (EPQ) and condition-based maintenance (CBM) model for a stochastically deteriorating production system. Inspections are performed periodically to measure the real time degradation. The system fails (out-of-control) whenever its degradation is beyond a critical threshold level. In the out-of-control state, a proportion of nonconforming items are produced. To assess the degradation of the system and to increase the production of conforming items, preventive maintenance (PM) actions are carried out. An integrated EPQ and CBM optimization model that minimizes the total expected cost rate over an infinite time horizon is developed. The objective is to determine a joint optimal EPQ and PM strategy minimizing the sum of inspection/maintenance and setup costs, cost of nonconforming items in addition to inventory holding cost. Numerical experiments are provided to illustrate the proposed approach

The specificity of the marketing distribution policy; diagnostic procedures in the enterprise

In the article stages of marketing distribution policy diagnostics are defined. At the first stage, it is proposed to analyse factors of enterprise internal and external environment (gathering information about general trends in the markets and factors of micro-environment (customers, competitors, suppliers, intermediaries, contact audiences). It is approved that analysis of general trends of the market’s development give an opportunity to determine the state of the enterprise macro-environment. At the same time, it is defined that the greatest influence on the marketing distribution policy provide such internal subsystems of the enterprise, as material and production, information, social, marketing and financial. At the second stage of marketing distribution policy diagnostics, researchers propose to analyse the internal system of marketing distribution policy at the enterprise. It is determined that the effectiveness of marketing distribution policy can be defined basing on indicators that can be combined in the following groups: 1) indicators of the enterprise’s market share (the market share of the enterprise, the rate of the market share increase), 2) indicators of sales activities profitability (the rate of profit from sales increase (decrease), the rate of receivables increase (decrease), product profitability, sales profitability), 3) indicators of sales expenses efficiency (sales volume of expenses, the rate of sales expenses increase (decrease), the ratio of increase (decrease) in sales from the sales costs increase (decrease), the profitability of investment in marketing and sales), 4) indicators of inventory (inventory levels, the proportion of unsold commodities in the value of the produced commodities, the coefficient of inventory turnover) and 5) indicators of service level (the rate of complaints increase (decrease), the rate of concluded contracts number increase (decrease)). And the third stage of marketing distribution policy diagnostics, it is recommended to identify internal (e.g., lack of sales personnel evaluation system, risk of marketing channels incorrect choice, risk of distribution strategies incorrect selection, risk of sales activity costs increasing, low level of assortment renovation and others) and external (e.g., foreign risk, inflation risk, tax risk, political risk, risk of legislative changes, risk of target segment incorrect selection, high level of competitive forces influence and others) sales risks that affect or may affect marketing distribution policy

Incorporating machine reliability issue and backlogging into the EMQ model - Part II: Random breakdown occurring in inventory piling time

This paper presents the second part of a research which is concerned with incorporating machine reliability issues and backlogging into the economic manufacturing quantity (EMQ) model. It may be noted that in a production system when back-ordering is permitted, a random machine failure can take place in either backorder filling stage or in on-hand inventory piling time. The first part of the research investigates the effect of a machine failure occurring in backorder filling stage on the optimal lot-size; while this paper (the second part of the research) studies the effect of random breakdown happening in inventory piling time on the optimal batch size for such an imperfect EMQ model. The objective is to determine the optimal replenishment lot-size that minimizes the overall productioninventory costs. Mathematical modelling is used and the renewal reward theorem is employed to cope with the variable cycle length. Hessian matrix equations are utilized to prove convexity of the cost function. Then, the optimal lot size for such a real-life imperfect manufacturing system is derived. Practitioners and managers in the field can adopt these replenishment policies to establish their own robust production plan accordingly

The specificity of the marketing distribution policy; diagnostic procedures in the enterprise

In the article stages of marketing distribution policy diagnostics are defined. At the first stage, it is proposed to analyse factors of enterprise internal and external environment (gathering information about general trends in the markets and factors of micro-environment (customers, competitors, suppliers, intermediaries, contact audiences). It is approved that analysis of general trends of the market’s development give an opportunity to determine the state of the enterprise macro-environment. At the same time, it is defined that the greatest influence on the marketing distribution policy provide such internal subsystems of the enterprise, as material and production, information, social, marketing and financial. At the second stage of marketing distribution policy diagnostics, researchers propose to analyse the internal system of marketing distribution policy at the enterprise. It is determined that the effectiveness of marketing distribution policy can be defined basing on indicators that can be combined in the following groups: 1) indicators of the enterprise’s market share (the market share of the enterprise, the rate of the market share increase), 2) indicators of sales activities profitability (the rate of profit from sales increase (decrease), the rate of receivables increase (decrease), product profitability, sales profitability), 3) indicators of sales expenses efficiency (sales volume of expenses, the rate of sales expenses increase (decrease), the ratio of increase (decrease) in sales from the sales costs increase (decrease), the profitability of investment in marketing and sales), 4) indicators of inventory (inventory levels, the proportion of unsold commodities in the value of the produced commodities, the coefficient of inventory turnover) and 5) indicators of service level (the rate of complaints increase (decrease), the rate of concluded contracts number increase (decrease)). And the third stage of marketing distribution policy diagnostics, it is recommended to identify internal (e.g., lack of sales personnel evaluation system, risk of marketing channels incorrect choice, risk of distribution strategies incorrect selection, risk of sales activity costs increasing, low level of assortment renovation and others) and external (e.g., foreign risk, inflation risk, tax risk, political risk, risk of legislative changes, risk of target segment incorrect selection, high level of competitive forces influence and others) sales risks that affect or may affect marketing distribution policy