Enhancing Supply Chain Reliability through Agent-Based Supply Chain Event Management

Supply Chain Event Management (SCEM) is an approach to the monitoring of supply chains. It observes specific events and exceptions in real-time and then alerts managers if problems occur. This paper presents an architecture for an SCEM system based on intelligent software agents, Auto-ID technologies and mobile user interfaces. The motivation for this approach is to enhance existing SCEM solutions by exploiting up-to-date technologies. It delegates the task of automated problem solving when disruptions in supply chains occur to software agents

A survey of simulation techniques in commerce and defence

Despite the developments in Modelling and Simulation (M&S) tools and techniques over the past years, there has been a gap in the M&S research and practice in healthcare on developing a toolkit to assist the modellers and simulation practitioners with selecting an appropriate set of techniques. This study is a preliminary step towards this goal. This paper presents some results from a systematic literature survey on applications of M&S in the commerce and defence domains that could inspire some improvements in the healthcare. Interim results show that in the commercial sector Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) has been the most widely used technique with System Dynamics (SD) in second place. However in the defence sector, SD has gained relatively more attention. SD has been found quite useful for qualitative and soft factors analysis. From both the surveys it becomes clear that there is a growing trend towards using hybrid M&S approaches

Integrating ERP and enterprise social software

Purpose : The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of a hybrid enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, combining an ERP system with enterprise social software (ESS). The study will provide a critical assessment of the implementation of this process technology. Design/methodology/approach : Multiple case studies of organisations based in China were conducted to understand the use of ERP systems in different contexts. Following an evaluation of the context of each ERP implementation (within-case analysis) the research draws a cross-case conclusion that defines the nature of a hybrid ERP system and then synthesises the propositions related to the benefits and challenges of implementation. Findings : The authors find that a hybrid ERP system is able to support efficiency in business process management and also provide a flexible response to changes in business requirements. It does this by allowing for the continued use of informal processes that cannot be incorporated into the ERP system. Practical implications : This research indicates how ERP systems in conjunction with ESS can provide a flexible response to changing business requirements and increase collaboration within the organisation. Key lessons include the need to perform informal activities under the guidance of managers and provide clear boundaries for the implementation of informal activities. Originality/value : This study has found that the use of case studies can provide a valuable insight into the use of a hybrid ERP system from the perspective of its use within the organisation as a work system that requires an assessment of the context within which organisational members perform their work

Engineering framework for service-oriented automation systems

Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Informática. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201

Aide à la prise de décision en temps réel dans un contexte de production adaptative

La dynamique des marchés a évolué et les entreprises manufacturières ont dû s’adapter pour rester compétitives. Une usine se définissait historiquement par les biens qu’elle produisait. La valeur de ces biens était évaluée avant tout par leurs composants. Mais sous la pression du marché et de son dynamisme accru, les usines souhaitant rester compétitives deviennent de plus en plus des centres de service. Cela provoque des changements et des problèmes de gestion pour lesquels elles n’étaient pas préparées. L’efficacité économique de la création de valeur n’est plus aujourd’hui la seule propriété des produits, mais se déplace vers les processus. Cela signifie que les potentiels qui seront décisifs ne sont pas à chercher dans les capacités des produits, mais dans les capacités des processus. En effet, la mondialisation accroit l’anonymat des produits tout au long de chaînes d’approvisionnement plus longues et plus complexes. Toute entreprise souhaitant se démarquer de la compétition doit proposer à ses clients de la valeur ajoutée additionnelle tels qu’une flexibilité accrue, des délais de livraison plus courts, un meilleur respect des délais, un plus grand choix d’options. Ces propriétés sont le fruit des processus. Leur valeur ajoutée se transfère à leur résultat et donc au client. Une des conditions nécessaires à la transparence des processus est leur capacité à coller en temps réel au flux de valeur de l’entreprise. Les processus doivent être en mesure de s’adapter aux conditions changeantes de l’environnement, de réagir à des événements imprévus et de résoudre ces difficultés en collaborant. C’est à ces conditions qu’ils pourront devenir des processus adaptatifs. Cette thèse s’intéresse aux processus de réordonnancement en milieu industriel. Elle vise l’implantation de composantes d’aide à la prise de décision en temps réel ainsi que des mécanismes de boucle rétroactive intégrant l’optimisation et les techniques de simulation au sein d’applications ERP et MES permettant ainsi de connecter l’atelier de production au reste de l’entreprise. La plateforme qui a été mise en place permet de répondre en temps réel aux divers aléas survenant dans l’atelier et peut être étendue au-delà de la problématique de l’ordonnancement.----------ABSTRACT The market dynamics have evolved and manufacturing facilities have followed this trend to stay competitive. The classic factory has been defined by its manufactured goods. The value of these goods has been measured primarily by their material components. But under the market pressure and its increasing dynamism, factories wishing to stay competitive are becoming modern service centers. It has resulted in management problems for which many companies are not yet prepared. Today, the economic efficiency of value creation is not a property of the products but rather of the process. It means the decisive potentials of companies are to be found not so much in their production capability but in their process capability. Indeed, increasing globalization is necessarily leading towards more anonymous products out of long supply chains. Any enterprise wishing to stand out from the competition in the future needs a strategy which offers the customer an additional added value, such as, for example, high flexibility, short delivery times, high delivery reliability, and wide range of variants. These properties are created by the processes. The requirement for process capability gives rise in turn to the requirement that all value-adding processes be geared to the process result and thus to the customer. A necessary condition of process transparency is the ability to map the company's value stream in real time. Processes must be able to adapt to environmental changing conditions, react to unforeseen events and to solve these difficulties by collaborating. Under these conditions they can be called adaptive processes. This thesis focuses on scheduling process in manufacturing environments. The main objective is to implement real time decision-making support components as well as feedback loop mechanisms integrating optimization and simulation techniques in ERP and MES applications allowing connecting the shop floor to the rest of the enterprise. The proposed platform responds in real time to various events occurring on the shop floor and may be extended beyond the scheduling issue. The works developed during this thesis are based on four published, accepted or submitted papers to specialized papers

Internet of Things-Enabled Dynamic Performance Measurement for Real-Time Supply Chain Management - Toward Smarter Supply Chain -

학위논문 (박사)-- 서울대학교 대학원 : 공과대학 산업공학과, 2018. 2. Park, Jinwoo.Supply chain performance measurement has become one of the most important and critical management strategies in the pursuit of perfection and in strengthening the competitive edges of supply chains to face the challenges in todays global markets. To constantly cope with the resulting rapid changes and adopt new process designs while reviving supply chain initiatives and keeping them alive, an effective real-time performance-based IT system should be developed. And there are many researches on supply chain performance measurement system based on the real-time information system. This thesis proposes a standard framework of a digitalized smart real-time performance-based system. The framework represents a new type of smart real-time monitoring and controlling performance-based IT mechanism for the next-generation of supply chain management practices with dynamic and intelligent aspects concerning strategic performance targets. The idea of this mechanism has been derived from the main concepts of traditional supply chain workflow and performance measurement systemswhere the time-based flow is greatly emphasized and considered as the most critical success factor. The proposed mechanism is called Dynamic Supply Chain Performance Mapping (DSCPM), a computerized event-driven performance-based IT system that runs in real-time according to supply chain management principles that cover all supply chain aspects through a diversity of powerful practices to effectively capture violations, and enable timely decision-making to reduce wastes and maximize value. The DSCPM is proposed to contain different types of engines of which the most important one is the Performance Practices and Applications Engine (PPAE) due to its involvement with several modules to guarantee the comprehensiveness of the real-time monitoring system. Each of these modules is specified to control a specific supply chain application that is equipped with suitable real-time monitoring and controlling rules called Real-Time Performance Control Rules (RT-PCRs), which are expressed using Complex Event Processing (CEP) method. The RT-PCRs enable DSCPM to detect any interruptions or violation smartly and accordingly trigger real-time decision-making warnings or re-(actions) to control the performance and achieve a smart real-time working environment. The contributions of this dissertation are as follows: (1) building a conceptual framework to digitalize the supply chain, based on their strategic performance targets, deploying IoT technologies to convert its resources to smart-objects and therefore enable a dynamic and real-time supply chain performance measurement and management. (2) Demonstrating the feasibility of the DSCPM concerning performance targets by developing some practices and tool modules that are supplied with RT-PCRs (e.g., Real-time Demand Lead-time Analysis, Real-time Smart Decision-making Analysis (RT-SDA), Real-time Supply Chain Cost Tracking System (RT-SCCT), etc.). (3) Verifying the effectiveness of RT-PCRs in RT-SDA and RT-SCCT modules by building simulation models using AnyLogic simulation software.Chapter 1. Introduction 1 1.1 OVERVIEW 1 1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT AND MOTIVATION 4 1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 7 1.4 THESIS OUTLINE 11 Chapter 2. Background and Literature Review 12 2.1 INTRODUCTION 12 2.2 SUPPLY CHAIN PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT 13 2.3 PROCESS-ORIENTED SCPM AND SCOR MODEL 25 2.4 IOT AND SCM 31 Chapter 3. Performance-based IoT Deployment for Digital Supply Chain Transformation 40 3.1 INTRODUCTION 40 3.2 DIGITAL SC TRANSFORMATION FRAMEWORK 42 3.3 FRAMEWORK DEMONSTRATION USING A THEORETICAL CASE STUDY 65 3.4 CONCLUSION 71 Chapter 4. IoT-enabled Dynamic Supply Chain Performance Mapping based on Complex Event Processing 73 4.1 INTRODUCTION 73 4.2 REAL-TIME ENTERPRISE INTEGRATION 74 4.3 INTEGRATION OF DSCPM IN REAL-TIME SUPPLY CHAIN INFRASTRUCTURE 76 4.4 DYNAMIC SUPPLY CHAIN PERFORMANCE MAPPING FRAMEWORK (DSCPM) 77 4.5 CONCLUSION 107 Chapter 5. DSCPM-enabled Smart Real-time Performance Measurement Environment 109 5.1 DSCPM-ENABLED REAL-TIME TIME AND PERFORMANCE-BASED ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK 109 5.2 DSCPM-ENABLED REAL-TIME SC COSTS TRACKING SYSTEM 132 Chapter 6. Managing Perishability in Dairy Supply Chain using DSCPM Framework (a case study scenario) 152 6.1 INTRODUCTION 152 6.2 ASSUMPTIONS AND NOTATION 153 6.3 SIMULATION EXPERIMENTS 158 6.4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 161 6.5 A NEW APPROACH, FOR DESIGNING AND MANAGING PERISHABLE PRODUCTS INVENTORY SYSTEM 168 6.6 DECISIONS SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS 172 6.7 IOT COSTS-BENEFITS ANALYSIS 173 6.8 CONCLUSIONS 176 Chapter 7. Conclusions 179 7.1 CONCLUSION 179 7.2 FUTURE RESEARCH 182 Bibliography 184Docto

An Integrated Framework for Automated Data Collection and Processing for Discrete Event Simulation Models

Discrete Events Simulation (DES) is a powerful tool of modeling and analysis used in different disciplines. DES models require data in order to determine the different parameters that drive the simulations. The literature about DES input data management indicates that the preparation of necessary input data is often a highly manual process, which causes inefficiencies, significant time consumption and a negative user experience. The focus of this research investigation is addressing the manual data collection and processing (MDCAP) problem prevalent in DES projects. This research investigation presents an integrated framework to solve the MDCAP problem by classifying the data needed for DES projects into three generic classes. Such classification permits automating and streamlining the preparation of the data, allowing DES modelers to collect, update, visualize, fit, validate, tally and test data in real-time, by performing intuitive actions. In addition to the proposed theoretical framework, this project introduces an innovative user interface that was programmed based on the ideas of the proposed framework. The interface is called DESI, which stands for Discrete Event Simulation Inputs. The proposed integrated framework to automate DES input data preparation was evaluated against benchmark measures presented in the literature in order to show its positive impact in DES input data management. This research investigation demonstrates that the proposed framework, instantiated by the DESI interface, addresses current gaps in the field, reduces the time devoted to input data management within DES projects and advances the state-of-the-art in DES input data management automation

An approach for the development and implementation of systems in complex business contexts through methodology tailoring

Systems utilised in complex business contexts commonly need to be well integrated within the business in which they operate. There is a risk of poor acceptance, adoption, and sustainment in the business if the system does not take into account key business related considerations. Utilising DePuy Orthopaedics resource management business context as a case study, an assessment of potential System Development Methodologies (SDM) that could be utilised in the development of an IT system was carried out. It was established that no single SDM could provide the level of support that was identified as required. Further investigation of system development within complex businesses ascertained that methodology tailoring is an approach utilised to ensure that methodologies incorporate business specific complexities with a subsequent aim to ensure that developed systems are fit for purpose. However, there is little proven procedural guidance that illustrates an approach towards SDM tailoring in the complex business environment of resource management for New Product Development at DePuy. There was, therefore a gap in research and an identified need for an approach that provides the appropriate level of support for SDM tailoring for the development of systems in this complex business context.Utilising the knowledge gathered within DePuy Orthopaedics, as well as from literature in the field, methods for managing business related complexities in system development were established, developed, and formalised into an approach that addressed the tailoring of SDMs. The approach was influenced by the critical evaluation of DePuy's complex business context which aided in the creating and application of the approach.The approach was validated through its application in a business context, where it was used to develop a tailored methodology for use in developing and implementing a resource management IT system at a portfolio level. The validation proved the approach was legitimate and produced a methodology and subsequent system which were readily adopted and accepted by the company. Furthermore, the tailored methodology was evaluated by industrially based engineers with experience of systems development in a complex business context, resource management and systems engineering. From this evaluation, it was established that the tailored methodology was sound and can be said to be valid in the context that it was developed.Systems utilised in complex business contexts commonly need to be well integrated within the business in which they operate. There is a risk of poor acceptance, adoption, and sustainment in the business if the system does not take into account key business related considerations. Utilising DePuy Orthopaedics resource management business context as a case study, an assessment of potential System Development Methodologies (SDM) that could be utilised in the development of an IT system was carried out. It was established that no single SDM could provide the level of support that was identified as required. Further investigation of system development within complex businesses ascertained that methodology tailoring is an approach utilised to ensure that methodologies incorporate business specific complexities with a subsequent aim to ensure that developed systems are fit for purpose. However, there is little proven procedural guidance that illustrates an approach towards SDM tailoring in the complex business environment of resource management for New Product Development at DePuy. There was, therefore a gap in research and an identified need for an approach that provides the appropriate level of support for SDM tailoring for the development of systems in this complex business context.Utilising the knowledge gathered within DePuy Orthopaedics, as well as from literature in the field, methods for managing business related complexities in system development were established, developed, and formalised into an approach that addressed the tailoring of SDMs. The approach was influenced by the critical evaluation of DePuy's complex business context which aided in the creating and application of the approach.The approach was validated through its application in a business context, where it was used to develop a tailored methodology for use in developing and implementing a resource management IT system at a portfolio level. The validation proved the approach was legitimate and produced a methodology and subsequent system which were readily adopted and accepted by the company. Furthermore, the tailored methodology was evaluated by industrially based engineers with experience of systems development in a complex business context, resource management and systems engineering. From this evaluation, it was established that the tailored methodology was sound and can be said to be valid in the context that it was developed