Supply Chain

Traditionally supply chain management has meant factories, assembly lines, warehouses, transportation vehicles, and time sheets. Modern supply chain management is a highly complex, multidimensional problem set with virtually endless number of variables for optimization. An Internet enabled supply chain may have just-in-time delivery, precise inventory visibility, and up-to-the-minute distribution-tracking capabilities. Technology advances have enabled supply chains to become strategic weapons that can help avoid disasters, lower costs, and make money. From internal enterprise processes to external business transactions with suppliers, transporters, channels and end-users marks the wide range of challenges researchers have to handle. The aim of this book is at revealing and illustrating this diversity in terms of scientific and theoretical fundamentals, prevailing concepts as well as current practical applications

Dynamics of Buyer-Supplier Co-dependency for Optimizing Functional Efficiency

The performance related issues of buyer-supplier relationship have attracted both the academic and corporate managers. The study attempts to make theoretical contributions to the literature on relationships in marketing channels. Compared with the impact of the often-investigated construct of dependence structure, the impact of channel function performance on relationship quality is relatively large. This study has been conducted in reference to the suppliers of office equipments serving to the industrial accounts in Mexico. The study addresses broadly the issues as to what extent is the impact of quality performance responsible for doing business with the organizational buyers. Discussions also analyze the impact of channel function performance on relationship quality, which is moderated by the extent dependence structure of the relationship.Buyer behavior, supplier performance, co-dependency, supply design, profit optimization, buyer value, market coverage, conformance, supply quality

Essays in Measuring, Controlling, and Coordinating Supply Chain Inventory and Transportation Operations

Supply chain collaboration programs, such as continuous replenishment program (CRP), is among the most popular supply chain management practices. CRP is an arrangement between two partners in a supply chain to share information on a regular basis for lowering logistics costs while maintaining or increasing service levels. CRP shifts the replenishment responsibility to the upstream partner to avoid the bullwhip effect across the supply chain. This dissertation aims to quantify, measure, and expand the benefits of CRP for the purpose of reducing logistics cost and improving customer service. The developed models in this dissertation are all applied in different case studies supported by a group of major healthcare partners. The first research contribution, discussed in chapter 2, is a comprehensive data-driven cost approximation model that quantifies the benefits of CRP for both partners under three cost components of inventory holding, transportation and ordering processing without imposing assumptions that normally do not hold in practice. The second contribution, discussed in chapter 3, is development of a verifiable efficiency measurement system to ensure the benefits of CRP for all partners. Multi-functional efficiency metrics are designed to capture the trade-off in gaining efficiency between multiple functions of logistics (i.e. inventory efficiency, transportation efficiency, and order processing efficiency). In addition, a statistical process control (SPC) system is developed to monitor the metrics over time. We discuss suitable SPC systems for various time series behaviors of the metrics. The third contribution of the dissertation, discussed in chapter 4, is development of a multi-objective decision analysis (MODA) model for multi-stop truckload (MSTL) planning. MSTL is becoming increasing popular among shippers while is experiencing significant resistance from carriers. MSTL is capable of reducing the shipping cost of shippers substantially but it can also disrupt carriers’ operations. A MODA model is developed for this problem to incorporate the key decision criteria of both sides for identifying the most desirable multi-stop routes from the perspective both decision makers

A New Approach for Evaluating the Order Fulfillment Process Options of B2C Horizontal Portals Using DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis)

By using the traditional statistical or operations research methods for deciding the product-delivery logistics, the portal companies are not using their competitive advantages on being more e-enabled, informed and computationally able than their traditional counterparts. In this paper, we show some typical characteristics of the portals like their handling of a huge range of goods in terms of transactional values or volumes. Subsequently, we have identified three types of generic product-delivery logistics of the portals with various intermediate entities or trading partners. Then, a completely different approach using an extreme point method rather than the traditional central-tendency-based statistical methods has been suggested

The effect of BPO Capability on Business Performance through Collaboration Practices and ERP Development

This study investigates effect of business process owner (BPO) capability on business performance through collaboration practices and enterprise resource planning (ERP) development with the moderating of vendor competency. Data collection used questionnaire and used PLS. The result is capability BPO provides influence ERP development, collaboration practices and business performance. Vendor competency moderate�s relationship of BPO capability and ERP development. Vendor competency didn�t moderate the relationship of BPO capability and collaboration practices. Collaboration practices influence ERP development and business performance

Exploring a state wildlife agency's account of contracted wildlife management and factors influencing contract use

2013 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.State wildlife agencies are charged with trust responsibilities for wildlife resources. However the authorities of the agencies do not encompass all those needed to fulfill the trustee duties. This compels engagement of other government agencies, non-government entities and private parties in state wildlife management through incentives, collaborative management approaches and public engagement processes. However, details about the use of contracts related to collaborative management efforts and the relationships between the use of contract tools and state wildlife agency funding is not available. Accounting records and interviews with agency staff and contractors provide an account of collaborative management contracting which is not reported elsewhere. An in-depth case study of Colorado Division of Wildlife's (CDOW) use of contracts to accomplish wildlife management purposes was developed using accounting, appropriation and budget records and interviews with CDOW staff, state procurement staff and both non-profit and for profit contractors. A limited, interview only, case study of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's (WGFD) use of wildlife management contracts was use to explore similarities or differences between two state wildlife agencies. CDOW's contract accounting records and legislative appropriations for fiscal years 1999 through 2010 used in the evaluation of the extent and changes in use. Twenty three interviews were conducted in Colorado and four with WGFD staff. The 12 fiscal years of contract accounting and appropriation records were explored for hypothesized relationships suggested from the government contracting literature. It was hypothesized that state wildlife agencies use of contracts differed from that described for other government agencies in the public administration literature in which contract use has been related to employee numbers or funding and shows increased use of contracts. The CDOW accounting records portray relatively stable levels of contract numbers. Service contracts, defined as all services and grant contracts, were not statistically related to total fiscal resources or staff levels. Total service contracts per fiscal year showed a small increase in numbers over the period however the expenditures on these contracts did not statistically differ. The number and value of contracts between CDOW and other government agencies or NGOs did not have statistically significant increases over the 12 year period. The value of grants contracts was found to be related to funds available. Further, grants and capital property acquisition spending was related to available fiscal resources. The informal semi-structured interviews were used to explored why and how extensively collaborative type contracts were used and to explore the benefits, difficulties and capacity needs related to their use. Contractor interviews focused on relationship with the state wildlife agency, difficulties in contracting with the agency and capacity issues related to contracting with either of the wildlife agencies. Interview content was analyzed using two approaches. One employed an a priori agency theory framework to code all interview transcripts. The second approach used a grounded theory based approach explore the themes related to collaborative contract use in the interview transcripts. An agency theory analysis was employed to provide insight into the agencies' contractor relationships and the interaction of agency theory with collaborative management contracts. The analysis of the procurement and wildlife agency principle-agent conflicts employed a shifting principle identity in which procurement/accounting staff and wildlife staff roles were switched to allow fuller characterization of the interview content. The conflict between the formal accountability based procurement procedures and wildlife staff's need for more flexibility is represented by the moral hazard coding characterized as goal conflicts. Wildlife agency staff identified adverse selection elements of performance and asymmetrical information most frequently in relation to contractors which is consistent with the emphasis placed on experience and relationships and the reported limited number of suitable contractors. Two main thematic elements emerged from the interviews as influencing the extent to which collaborative management contracts are used. The first is a systemic theme which identifies elements outside of the wildlife agency and includes legislation, budget, procurement policies and available contractors. The second is an institutional theme which includes constructed realities surrounding the relationships with and role of procurement processes, wildlife management norms and professionalism. A decision model is developed form informant provided content. The decision model and themes are supported by the procurement staff and contractors and accounting records. The results from the WGFD case support the results from the larger CDOW case suggesting they are characteristics shared by state wildlife management agencies

THREE ESSAYS ON VENDOR MANAGED INVENTORY IN SUPPLY CHAINS

Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), Consignment Inventory (CI) and a combination of both (C&VMI) are supply-chain sourcing agreements between a vendor and customer. VMI allows the vendor to initiate orders on behalf of the customer. In CI, the customer pays for the goods supplied by the vendor only upon use. The vendor under C&VMI decides customer-replenishments, and owns the goods replenished until they are deployed by the customer. Our thesis studies these agreements in three essays. The first essay considers a vendor V that manufactures a particular product at a unique location. That item is sold to a single retailer, the customer C. Three cases are treated in detail: Independent decision making (no agreement between the parties); VMI, whereby the supplier V initiates orders on behalf of C; and Central decision making (both Vendor and Customer are controlled by the same corporate entity). Values of some cost parameters may vary between the three cases, and each case may cause a different actor to be responsible for particular expenses. Under a constant demand rate, optimal solutions are obtained analytically for the customer's order quantity, the vendor's production quantity, hence the parties' individual and total costs in the three cases. Inequalities are obtained to delineate those situations in which VMI is beneficial. The problem setting in the second essay is the same with that of Essay 1, but the sourcing agreements investigated are now CI and C&VMI. In CI, as in the usual independent-sourcing approach, the customer has authority over the timing and quantity of replenishments. CI seems to favour the customer because, in addition, he pays for the goods only upon use. Under a C&VMI agreement, the vendor still owns the goods at the customer's premises, but at least can determine how much to store there. The second essay thus contrasts the cases CI and C&VMI, and compares each of them to a no-agreement case. General conditions under which those cases create benefits for the vendor, the customer and the whole chain are determined. Essay 3 investigates VMI and C&VMI separately for a vendor and multiple customers who face time-varying, but deterministic demand for a single product. In any of those agreements, the vendor seeks the best set of customers to achieve economies of scale. MIP models are developed to find that set of customers, and to determine the vendor's optimal production, transportation, and customer-replenishment quantities. The model for VMI is solved using a heuristic that produces two sub-models, and uses hierarchical solution approach for production, customer-replenishment and transportation decisions. C&VMI model is solved using Lagrangian relaxation. Various numerical examples are used to test the solution approaches used. In the mean time, the customers can guarantee to be no worse off under VMI or C&VMI than the no-agreement case by setting the right levels of maximum inventory. A model to determine those levels and a solution algorithm are also proposed in Essay 3. The first two essays can help a vendor or customer in a supply chain to determine the least costly sourcing option, which depends on the relative values of various cost parameters. A vendor with multiple customers can make use of the results in the third essay, which reveal the best possible economies of scale under VMI or C&VMI. Those customers can guarantee to be no worse of than traditional sourcing when they set the proposed levels of maximum inventory

Using System Dynamics Approach to Construct a Performance Measurement Model for Pharmacy Supply Chain Management

A credible performance measurement system is imperative to evaluate SCM systems effectiveness. However, commonly accepted measurements for evaluating pharmacy supply chain management (SCM) are yet to be developed. This study models the dynamic behavior of pharmacy supply chains to include managerial policies and performance measuring systems based on a well-established theoretical framework. The system dynamics methodology is adopted to simulate three scenarios: (1) demand forecasting policy, (2) market need, and (3) manufacturing errors. Simulation results lead to important policy implications of pharmacy SCM