Information System as a Tool of Decision Support

The article deals with possibilities of creating system for support the activities of logistics systems. This system would serve as a means for decision support. In support of the activities of logistics systems is necessary to implement a large number of decisions. Decisions are realized on different management levels. Any decision on individual levels can cause improvement, respectively aggravation of system operation. The impacts of decisions can have local effect on the overall operation of logistics systems, but may also seriously affect the whole system, positively or negatively. Many experts and scientific literature define and argue that “logistics is only one” and is associated with ensuring of chain “purchase - production - sales”, or “supply - production - distribution”. All other activities are only for ensuring of activities of the main chain. Of course, that without the support activities should the main chain was unable to function effectively. For ensuring main and support activities for logistics needs is possible to use great number of methods from different branches. By joining of methods into one system, it is possible to create a universal program means for support decision and effective operation of logistics systems

A multicriteria decision model for the selection of information system for a logistics company using MMASSI/TI

The aim of this work is to apply a methodology of decision support based on a multi-criteria decision analyses (MCDA), model that allows the evaluation and selection of an information system in a Logistics context. We carried out a literature review on supply chain management, logistics and decision theory to support all the practical work. A multi-criteria methodology for decision making support – Multi-criteria Methodology for the Assessment and Selection of Information Systems / Information Technologies (MMASSI / IT) based on logistics processes was applied during the MCDA, supported by a computer application. The ranking of the information systems best suited the decisional context was obtained and its sensitivity and robustness analyses performed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Decisions Variables Within Reverse Logistics

This paper addresses a gap in the Lambert model of supply chain management through refining the link between the returns management process and the overall strategy of a supply chain firm by addressing the decision as to which reverse logistics activity to pursue. Current literature is sparse in this area and existing decision support systems (DSS) do not specifically address this problem. In order to determine what variables should be considered in such a DSS, recent DSS and simulation literature that addresses decision making within reverse logistics was reviewed. The author compiled a listing of 60 different variables spanning six broad categories, which identify areas for further research, gives researchers a comprehensive listing of variables to consider, and that can be analyzed in further studies to create a disposition decision framework and corresponding DSS. he views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government

EXPLORING STRUCTURAL AND SYSTEMIC IMPROVEMENTS TO PROMOTE EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT PHARMACEUTICAL SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT FOR HIV/AIDS SERVICE DELIVERY IN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT Ibegbunam, Innocent Ndubuisi: Exploring structural and systemic improvements to promote effective and efficient pharmaceutical supply chain management for HIV/AIDS service delivery in Nigeria (Under the direction of Pam Silberman) The uninterrupted availability of health products is essential for the provision of HIV/AIDS services. A 2015 assessment of public health supply chain systems in Nigeria supporting HIV/AIDS services revealed that some vital HIV/AIDS products were unavailable in about 9%–16% of health facilities visited. This implied >10% of the health facilities visited did not have all the life-saving HIV/AIDS commodities needed to provide needed clinical services. Health commodity unavailability interrupts health service delivery, negatively affects the quality of services and adversely affects patient adherence to treatment. This suggests a need for changes in the HIV/AIDS supply chain management (SCM) system. The aim of this study was to explore structural and systemic improvements needed to promote effective and efficient public-sector pharmaceutical SCM system for HIV/AIDS service delivery in Nigeria through (I) identification of current gaps in the pharmaceutical SCM system (II) identification of potential solutions to address the gaps (III) exploring effective solutions in Nigeria and other places, and (IV) identification of policy improvements for the pharmaceutical SCM system. The study was conducted using sequential mixed-method design of surveys and key informant interviews. The results identified poor logistics data management and use, poor information dissemination for decision-making, limited leadership and funding, poor performance management and limited human resources capacity to support SCM services which disrupts HIV/AIDS service delivery. Some of the solutions to address these gaps include: use of electronic systems for logistics data management to enhance decision-making, more widespread dissemination of information on changes in clinical guidelines and the SCM system, improvements in government leadership and funding, establishment of an accountability structure, improved performance management of private sector contracted to support the supply chain system, and improved human resource management. In addition, the study identified the need to set policies on minimum remaining shelf-life requirements for donated health products, minimum levels of government funding to support the supply chain system, and an implementation plan for the national supply chain policy.Doctor of Public Healt

Research on IT tools used in flow planning in supply chains

The processes of globalization and increased competitiveness caused that the company have begun to look for solutions and strategies that give opportunities for development and further market expansion. The intensification of competition on the global scale in the 1980s, forced companies to offer low cost, high quality and robust products with greater design flexibility. Various management concepts have been used to improve production efficiency and speed up the cycle. In the 1990s, many manufacturers and service providers began to focus on improving collaboration with suppliers and improving purchasing and supply management. Initially the cooperation was mainly developed in the area of purchasing policies and supply management in factories, but as time went on, it became increasingly popular among wholesalers and retailers who also decided to integrate their transport and logistics functions in a supply chain with a view to gain competitive advantage (Choon T.). The increase in customer requirements with the same pressures to reduce costs and accelerate time service delivery resulted in the growing importance of planning and anticipation of future events. The increasing amount of data makes management depended on systems that allow for rapid decision-making. Apart from ERP systems, which mainly support the management of individual businesses, more and more companies invest in systems APS (Advanced Planning System), which provide  better support in planning processes throughout the supply chain. The aim of the article is to present the idea of advanced supply chain planning, constraints and challenges facing the managing the flow of products and information. The study also addressed the role of Advanced Planning Systems in supply chain management and identify main problems and obstacles that users and decision makers come across while implementing and using IT system

A Vision of Digitalization in Supply Chain Management and Logistics

Digitalization requires a new form of management to master the transformation process of corporations and companies. The Dortmund Management Model structures the focus areas of the digital transformation along the management tasks goal, planning, decision, realization and monitoring as well as the common socio-technical subsystems technological, organizational and personnel - enriched by a fourth dimension: information. Additionally, the acceleration factors transformation, migration and change management are taken into account. This paper embraces a vision for a persistent management of production and supply chain networks in order to achieve a holistic Management 4.0. The emerging developments of technology, methods, tools and models in production and supply chain research are connected and merged into a big picture of digital supply chain management and logistics. The interfaces between management tasks show specific characteristics of digital business processes in particular, which are hereinafter exemplarily outlined: New business models and value-creation networks are based on adaption intelligent production systems, which are interconnected with digital models for continuous planning and reconfiguration. At the shop floor and between sites orders are completed by autonomous guided vehicles (AGV) with intelligent load carriers. Decentralized negotiations and decisions across company boundaries concluded with smart contracts are enabling reasonable and sustainable distribution of the value creation processes. Humans are still in the center of action – abilities are developed by integrated competence management, new learning approaches and human-centered assistance systems coupled with AI-based decision-making support. New types of organizations allow a synergetic collaboration of humans and machines. The benefit of integrating new production and transport technologies becomes assessable and accelerates the ongoing renewal of existing networks. This paper provides an overview of possible potential and connecting factors by linking different technological developments towards supply chain, logistics, production and management research and shows further research demands

Integrated Models and Tools for Design and Management of Global Supply Chain

In modern and global supply chain, the increasing trend toward product variety, level of service, short delivery delay and response time to consumers, highlight the importance to set and configure smooth and efficient logistic processes and operations. In order to comply such purposes the supply chain management (SCM) theory entails a wide set of models, algorithms, procedure, tools and best practices for the design, the management and control of articulated supply chain networks and logistics nodes. The purpose of this Ph.D. dissertation is going in detail on the principle aspects and concerns of supply chain network and warehousing systems, by proposing and illustrating useful methods, procedures and support-decision tools for the design and management of real instance applications, such those currently face by enterprises. In particular, after a comprehensive literature review of the principal warehousing issues and entities, the manuscript focuses on design top-down procedure for both less-than-unit-load OPS and unit-load storage systems. For both, decision-support software platforms are illustrated as useful tools to address the optimization of the warehousing performances and efficiency metrics. The development of such interfaces enables to test the effectiveness of the proposed hierarchical top-down procedure with huge real case studies, taken by industry applications. Whether the large part of the manuscript deals with micro concerns of warehousing nodes, also macro issues and aspects related to the planning, design, and management of the whole supply chain are enquired and discussed. The integration of macro criticalities, such as the design of the supply chain infrastructure and the placement of the logistic nodes, with micro concerns, such the design of warehousing nodes and the management of material handling, is addressed through the definition of integrated models and procedures, involving the overall supply chain and the whole product life cycle. A new integrated perspective should be applied in study and planning of global supply chains. Each aspect of the reality influences the others. Each product consumed by a customer tells a story, made by activities, transformations, handling, processes, traveling around the world. Each step of this story accounts costs, time, resources exploitation, labor, waste, pollution. The economical and environmental sustainability of the modern global supply chain is the challenge to face

Modeling IoT enablers for humanitarian supply chains coordination

Disaster relief operations rely on reliable real-time information sharing during disasters to coordinate scarce resources and save lives. The Internet of Things (IoT) has recently been regarded as an important technology for enhancing information sharing in disaster response operations to achieve effective coordination, accurate situational awareness, and comprehensive visibility of operational resources. Despite its relevance, its adaptation and implementation have been fraught with complexity. This research aims to understand the IoT enablers of humanitarian supply chain coordination. Seven dimensional enablers have been formulated by reviewing the literature and validating with practitioners’ opinions. A structural model is then developed using the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) technique that addresses the interdependencies of IoT enablers in humanitarian supply chain coordination. Finding provides insights into the interplay between management support, IT infrastructures, and third-party logistics service providers as key enablers towards adaptation and implementation of IoT in humanitarian supply chains. Results provide important implications and insight to decision-makers in international humanitarian organizations toward adaptation and implementation of IoT systems in humanitarian supply chains

Assessing Supply Chain Risks in the Automotive Industry through a Modified MCDM-Based FMECA

[EN] Supply chains are complex networks that receive assiduous attention in the literature. Like any complex network, a supply chain is subject to a wide variety of risks that can result in significant economic losses and negative impacts in terms of image and prestige for companies. In circumstances of aggressive competition among companies, effective management of supply chain risks (SCRs) is crucial, and is currently a very active field of research. Failure Mode, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) has been recently extended to SCR identification and prioritization, aiming at reducing potential losses caused by lack of risk control. This article has a twofold objective. First, SCR assessment is investigated, and a comprehensive list of specific risks related to the automotive industry is compiled to extend the set of most commonly considered risks. Second, an alternative way of calculating the Risk Priority Number (RPN) is proposed within the FMECA framework by means of an integrated Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) approach. We give a new calculation procedure by making use of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to derive factors weights, and then the fuzzy Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) to evaluate the new factor of "dependence" among the risks. The developed joint analysis constitutes a risk analysis support tool for criticality in systems engineering. The approach also deals with uncertainty and vagueness associated with input data through the use of fuzzy numbers. The results obtained from a relevant case study in the automotive industry showcase the effectiveness of this approach, which brings important value to those companies: When planning interventions of prevention/mitigation, primary importance should be given to (1) supply chain disruptions due to natural disasters; (2) manufacturing facilities, human resources, policies and breakdown processes; and (3) inefficient transport.Mzougui, I.; Carpitella, S.; Certa, A.; El Felsoufi, Z.; Izquierdo Sebastián, J. (2020). Assessing Supply Chain Risks in the Automotive Industry through a Modified MCDM-Based FMECA. Processes. 8(5):1-22. https://doi.org/10.3390/pr8050579S12285Tian, Q., & Guo, W. (2019). Reconfiguration of manufacturing supply chains considering outsourcing decisions and supply chain risks. Journal of Manufacturing Systems, 52, 217-226. doi:10.1016/j.jmsy.2019.04.005Wu, Y., Jia, W., Li, L., Song, Z., Xu, C., & Liu, F. (2019). 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Operational research IO 2021—analytics for a better world. XXI Congress of APDIO, Figueira da Foz, Portugal, November 7–8, 2021

This book provides the current status of research on the application of OR methods to solve emerging and relevant operations management problems. Each chapter is a selected contribution of the IO2021 - XXI Congress of APDIO, the Portuguese Association of Operational Research, held in Figueira da Foz from 7 to 8 November 2021. Under the theme of analytics for a better world, the book presents interesting results and applications of OR cutting-edge methods and techniques to various real-world problems. Of particular importance are works applying nonlinear, multi-objective optimization, hybrid heuristics, multicriteria decision analysis, data envelopment analysis, simulation, clustering techniques and decision support systems, in different areas such as supply chain management, production planning and scheduling, logistics, energy, telecommunications, finance and health. All chapters were carefully reviewed by the members of the scientific program committee.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio