Detecting disturbances in supply chains: the case of capacity constraints

Purpose – The ability to detect disturbances quickly as they arise in a supply chain helps to manage them efficiently and effectively. This paper is aimed at demonstrating the feasibility of automatically, and therefore quickly detecting a specific disturbance, which is constrained capacity at a supply chain echelon. Design/Methodology/approach – Different supply chain echelons of a simulated four echelon supply chain were individually capacity constrained to assess their impacts on the profiles of system variables, and to develop a signature that related the profiles to the echelon location of the capacity constraint. A review of disturbance detection techniques across various domains formed the basis for considering the signature based technique. Findings – The signature for detecting a capacity constrained echelon was found to be based on cluster profiles of shipping and net inventory variables for that echelon as well as other echelons in a supply chain, where the variables are represented as spectra. Originality/value– Detection of disturbances in a supply chain including that of constrained capacity at an echelon has seen limited research where this study makes a contribution

Applying user signatures on fraud detection in telecommunications networks

Fraud in telecommunications is increasing dramatically with the expansion of modern technology, resulting in the loss of billions of dol- lars worldwide each year. Although prevention technologies are the best way to reduce fraud,. Fraudsters are adaptive, searching systematically for new ways to commit fraud and, in most of the cases, will usually find some way to circumvent companies prevention measures. In this paper we expose some of the ways in which fraud is being used against organi- zations, evaluating the limitations of existing strategies and methods to detect and prevent it in todays telecommunications companies. Addition- ally, we expose a data mining profiling technique based on signatures that was developed for a real mobile telecommunications network operator and integrated into one of its Fraud Management Systems (FMS), currently under operation.(undefined