29,732 research outputs found
Buyer focus: evaluation of a new concept for supply chain integration
The goal of integrated supply chains is to remove barriers to ease the flow of materials and information. This article concentrates on an important barrier: shared resources in a supply chain. The removal of these shared resources is closely related to the recently introduced concept of buyer focus. Buyer focus is described as the singling out of resources in order to supply one buyer along the whole range of its products. The value of buyer focus for supply chain integration is evaluated and in two cases illustrated. This article suggests that there are two extreme configurations in supply chains. On the one hand, suppliers with buyer-focused operations to enable high levels of integration in order to cope with uncertainty in volume, mix and leadtime. On the other hand, shared resources and low levels of integration, which are more likely in supply chains that are dominantly cost driven.
Car Industry developments â oil industry challenges
Automotive industry of Europe is one of the greatest economical powers, the âengine
of Europeâ. It employs directly 2.2 million people and 10 million in related industries and
services. Combined turnover of automotive manufacturers reaches 700 billion EUR (retail
another 520 billion EUR). The industry is the largest R&D investor in EU. On the other hand
the transport sector carries a huge safety and environmental risk. Thanks to this fact the
automotive industry is one of the most regulated sectors in the EU. As a result of these
regulations: one average car built in 1970s produced as many pollutant elements as one
hundred cars manufactured today.
These achievements are based on struggles of both the auto and oil industry as
parallel with technology development in car industry fuel quality developments achieved by
the oil industry drove to a much âcleanerâ fuel quality (unleaded sulphur free petrol, reduction
of aromatics, benzene; sulphur free diesel, reduction of density, poly-aromatics, etc.).
In the end of the 1990s, and especially for the last few years new challenges came
into the focus of the auto and oil industry of the EU and the world. Concerns about high
energy prices and price volatility, security of worldwide oil supply and climate change
became a main policy agenda of the EU and the world. This new policy is reflected in new
regulatory initiatives requiring cars using less energy more efficiently, emitting less carbondioxide
and using growing proportion of renewable fuels. The European Commission
declared the idea of âCars for Fuelsâ instead of âFuels for Carsâ.
This article discusses in detail the regulations and challenges that rose towards oil
and car industry during the recent years. It describes the possible solutions in order to fulfil
the requirements of the EU. After that a wide picture is presented without going into much
detail on developments of the automotive industry. Developments are divided between
vehicle level, engine level and fuel level technologies, also paying attention to technologies
that are less known or rather futuristic
Transition Inertia Due To Competition In Supply Chains With Remanufacturing And Recycling: A Systems Dynamics Model
This paper studies the link between capital goods supply chains and sociotechnical transitions. Research on the latter has so far tended to focus on sustainability, energy and transport systems. Despite the considerable shift from products to services, supply chains are an integral element of most sociotechnical systems and there seems to be no foreseeable substitute for them. Consequently, for transitions to sustainability to take place, the inertia of supply chains in these systems has to be overcome and their environmental impact reduced. The paper explores this with a system dynamics model of a supply chain. While remanufacturing of used products by the retailer and recycling by the supplier can reduce the environmental impact of the supply chain, competition in the market between new and remanufactured products forces them into a situation where improving business and environmental performance is difficult
Energy from waste and the food processing industry
The provision of a secure, continuous energy supply is becoming an issue for all sectors of society and the foodprocessingindustry as a major energy user must address these issues. This paper identifies anaerobic digestion as an opportunity to go some way to achieving energy security in a sustainable manner. However, a number of energy management and waste reduction concepts must also be brought into play if the environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainability are to be balanced. The reporting of such activity will help to promote the green credentials of the industry. Cleaner production, supply chain and life cycle assessment approaches all have a part to play as tools supporting a new vision for integrated energy and waste management. Our reliance on high-energyprocessing, such as canning and freezing/chill storage, might also need re-assessment together with processing based on hurdle technology. Finally, the concepts of energy and power management for a distributed energy generation system must be brought into the foodprocessingindustry
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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
Internal Supply-chain Competition In Remanufacturing: Operations Strategies, Performance And Environmental Effects
This paper investigates the competitive and environmental effects of different operations strategies of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and semi-independent remanufacturers, which simultaneously cooperate and compete in different stages of a closed-loop supply chain. In particular, a co-opetitive situation, in which remanufacturing is undertaken only by retailers while the OEMs' role is restricted to recycling is considered. After adopting a resource-based perspective of competition, investigations are accomplished using system dynamics simulation modelling. The results of simulations indicate that, in the long run, OEMs, regardless of the operation strategy they adopt, are unable to (re)capture the market gained by the remanufacturers. However, some of these strategies contribute to the improvement of the environmental performance of the entire supply chain
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