Modeling the Impact of RFID Technology on the Healthcare Supply Chain

Due to increasing competition in the healthcare industry, healthcare providers must find ways to reduce their costs of operation or potentially lose customers to more affordable options. For many years, the healthcare supply chain has significantly lagged behind the retail supply chain in terms of supply chain efficiency. Certain disruptive technologies that have become widespread in the retail supply chain have yet to be integrated by a significant number of healthcare providers, and as a result, there are large opportunities for improvements in the healthcare supply chain that could lead to both cost and time savings. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is a disruptive technology in the retail supply chain that utilizes readers to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. This paper leverages modeling and simulation techniques to explore the impact that RFID technology could have on the healthcare supply chain. Keywords Healthcare Supply Chain, Retail Supply Chain, Disruptive Technology, RFID Technology, Simulation, Modelin

Retail Supply Chain Coordination and Collaborative Optimization

The retail industry plays an important role in the economic development of the world. The Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) solution can coordinate the business process between the retailers and manufacturers in the retail supply chain and got its applications in many world-renowned retailers around the world. In this paper, CPFR coordination process and its applications will be briefly reviewed at the beginning. And then, an optimization model which can improve performance of retail supply chain coordination is p

Value Chain Analysis of Organic Vegetables on Two Different Supply Chain Systems in Yogyakarta

Recently, business of organic vegetables in YogyakartaYregion has been growing substantially. It is characterized by the formation of a new supply chain system called Jogjakarta organic market supply chain (POJOG) in addition to modern retail supply chain system that is already available i.e. Organic Farmers of Merapi (TOM). The different characteristics of these two supply chain systems allow the consumers to shift their preferences from modern retail supply chain to organic market supply chain when buying organic vegetables. Therefore, analysis of the performance and competitiveness of these two different supply chain systems is important for improvement of organic vegetable supply chain in the future. Based on the results of supply chain analysis, it was found that the added value obtained by modern retail supply chains TOM was 58.44%, while that obtained by organic market supply chain POJOG was 38.97%. The marketing margin ratio obtained by such players in modern retail supply chain system as farmers, TOM and Super Indo were 1.29, 1.91 and1.18 respectively, whereas those obtained by farmers and POJOG on the organic market supply chain were 2.10 and 1.29 respectively. In terms of marketing efficiency, Jogjakarta organic market performed better, accounting for 58%, more than double of those performed by modern retail supply chain that only accounted for 26%. Keywords: Value Chain Analysis; Organic Vegetables; Yogjakarta; Marketing Margi

Drivers of Retail Supply Chain Efficiency: Moderating Effect of Lean Strategy

The retail chain store business is an infant stage of growth and development in Bangladesh and so are the supply chain management practices in this sector. The main objective of this study is to identify the key drivers of retail supply chain efficiency. Moreover this study aims at examining the moderating effect of lean supply chain strategy on the link between supply chain drivers and performance. For the purpose of the study, data were collected with a structured questionnaire from 115 participants consisting of outlet and supply chain managers of some selected retail chain stores in Bangladesh. Collected data were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling with the support of the software Smart PLS 2.0 M3. Findings revealed that out of five supply chain drivers, four namely inventory management, use of IT, transportation management and coordination were the most significant determinants of retail supply chain efficiency while suppliers role was found to be negatively correlated. Moderating effect of lean strategy was also noticed on the link between two drivers namely transportation management and coordination with retail supply chain efficiency

Preferences for Halalan Toyyiban Retail Supply Chain Certification: A Case of Hypermarket

AbstractOne of the aspects that the grocery retailer needs to take into considerations while be able to serve its customers efficiently is by looking at the effectiveness of their store operations that deal with the issue of halalal toyyiban fulfilment. Issues such as whether the store offer halal products according to syariah; offer products that are imported from various different countries and obtained halal status as well as transit handling and authenticity of halal status of the products offered in the store are well documented; are all vulnerable and crucial for grocery retailer in order to keep their customers confidence at all time. As such, grocery retailer should consider a depth look at their retail supply chain activities. Grocery store operation that wants to be successful needs to have a leading operating model which complements with the need and wants of its customers. The study therefore concentrates in the utilization of MS2400 standards of retail halalan-toyyiban supply chain certification in the overall retail grocery store operations. It was observed that, the halalan-toyyiban concept is no longer confined to food only, but also covers the process of handling, packaging, storage, transporting and delivery. Helping grocery retailers specifically, hypermarket management to meet with their consumer's requirements and expectations will expand their marketplace and increase their sales and revenue. The current study therefore, seeks to explore the preferences of halalan-toyyiban retail supply chain certification among the hypermarket. Using purposively sampling technique, four hypermarkets were interviewed in the selective hypermarket in the Klang Valley, Malaysia. The results revealed that most selective hypermarket were somehow, not ready to embarking on the halalan toyyiban retail supply chain certification. Difficulties in getting information and supports from the hypermarket were among the main drawback of the study. This study is significant for both industry professionals and academician in order to gain information related to the issues of halalan toyyiban retail supply chain certification, thus helping the management in planning their halalan toyyiban retail supply chain certification as well as act as an added value to the hypermarket concern thus able to remain competitive in the market

Coordination of a Retail Supply Chain Distribution Flow

Retail supply chains are very sensitive by their nature and need to adapt to several situations with the aim to increase their reliability, flexibility and convenience. There are many factors affecting the effectiveness of a distribution flow, from perishability, capacities of storage areas, lead times, untimely deliveries and others. Because the latter heavily depend on the planned and realized distribution and not on the demand side perspective, we partially neglect them in the initial study. We focus only on the demand satisfaction, without considering any pricing policies, perishability factors, etc. Beside stochastic demand modelling we introduce the multi-objective optimization approach to cope with the minimization of transport and warehouse costs, minimization of over stock effects and the maximization of customers’ service level. Methodology used produces a set of solutions and its quality estimations in order to find the desired distribution plan that is near optimal. The paper further explains the integration of management decisions with respect to the obtained results of the modelling approach. The applicability of the model will be explained using a numerical example

Synchronizing the Retail Supply Chain

Dit proefschrift ontwerpt een retail supply chain, die beter en goedkoper is dan de gangbare. Dit wordt bereikt door de distributie te synchroniseren op de productie¬momenten. Goederen zouden direct uit productie al stroomafwaarts moeten bewegen, van fabrikant naar retailer, tegen lage kosten, in volle pallets en in volle auto’s en in hoeveel¬heden die groot genoeg zijn om de vraag tot het volgende productiemoment te dekken. Door de formules van de "Krantenverkoper" en die van de economische ordergrootte (EOQ) aan te passen aan een multi-echelon divergerend distributienetwerk, kan ook theoretisch worden bewezen dat het stroomafwaarts positioneren van voorraden inderdaad optimaal is en dat de voorraden daardoor zullen dalen. De huidige magazijnen van de leveranciers kunnen worden gereduceerd tot overslagpunten, waar goederen van de verschillende fabrieken van een leverancier worden samengebracht om rijden met vollere vrachtwagens mogelijk maken. Kleinere hoeveelheden kunnen leveranciers beter afleveren bij het dichtstbijzijnde distributiecentrum van een retailer, waarna de retailer zelf het deel met bestemming elders verder vervoert. Tenslotte kan de winkelbevoorrading worden aangepast aan de schapruimte, waardoor de werkwijze in de distributiecentra kan worden gerationaliseerd.Piet van der Vlist (1947) was born in Ouderkerk aan den IJssel. He received his high-school diploma from the Marnix Gymnasium in Rotterdam. Also in Rotterdam he graduated as Electronics Engineer at the University of Applied Sciences. He obtained a Master of Science in Electronics at the Delft University of Technology and one in Management Sciences at the University of Twente. He worked 15 years with the Dutch Ministry of Defense on the design and realization of the first generation digital communications systems. Then he joined Bakkenist Management Consultants and later Deloitte Consultancy, together for over 20 years. As consultant he was involved in numerous projects on Data exchange and Supply Chain redesign. Besides that, he was for 11 years (part-time) professor in ICT and Logistics at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Piet wrote and edited several books on data exchange and published numerous articles in business and scientific journals. A fairly good overview of his scientific career can be found in the "Liber Amicorum" that his friends wrote when he left Eindhoven University1. His current research interests lie in the design and management of retail supply chains, all the way from production down to the shelves. He found that the supply chain with the overall lowest costs requires synchronization of distribution to production and not the other way around as current practice seems to dictate. When he had to quit his jobs for health reasons, he finally found the opportunity to devote his time to research and extend the theory that supports Supply Chain Synchronization. He programmed built to purpose simulation models to get a better insight in the dynamics of synchronized supply chains. He joined both the Rotterdam Erasmus University to work with Professor Jo van Nunen and the Eindhoven University of Technology to work with Professor Ton de Kok. This PhD thesis is the result of that effort.This thesis is a design of a retail supply chain that is better and cheaper than the usual one. This is achieved by synchronizing distribution to production. Right from production goods should move downstream the supply chain at low cost in full pallets and in full truckloads, in quantities large enough to cover the needs till the next production run. By extending both the Newsvendor- and the EOQ-formulae to a multi-echelon divergent network, it can be proved that such forward positioning of inventory indeed is optimal and that overall supply chain inventories will drop. The suppliers’ warehouses become stockless cross docking points, where goods from the supplier’s various sourcing plants are brought together to consolidate them into full truckloads. Whenever suppliers deliver lower volumes, they better bring these goods to the nearest retailer’s facility; thereafter the retailer himself should move these goods onward to the proper destination within the retailer’s network. And finally shop replenishment should be rationalized based on shelf coverage, so as to enhance the retailer’s warehouse operations

In-transit cargo crime impacting the retail supply chain

Surveys of retail security directors show that almost half of those polled had been the victims of a supplychain disruption directly related to cargo theft. This is a significant increase from just five years ago. In order to fully understand the issue of cargo theft, retailers need to know why it exists, who is perpetrating it, how risk can be reduced, and ultimately how to react to a loss. This article explores a number of dimensions of the issue, and offers several suggestions for mitigating the risk and dealing with theft after it occurs