The Value of Cooperative Planning in Supply Chains - A Simulative Approach

In this paper we examine, how the benefits of Supply Chain Management, as announced by the literature and widely accepted, can simulatively be proven. We first present selected results of a survey conducted on the European automotive industry, which show an evident need for transparency, in terms of the quantification of the added-value of Supply Chain Management. For this purpose we introduce an XML-based prototype for modeling and simulating cooperative scenarios in supply chains, and illustrate its flexible architecture and the interaction between modeled scenarios and optimization routines through XML interfaces. In the context of this prototype we describe a simulation scenario in which the transportation activities in a supply chain are modeled and planned. We then run simulations in a cooperative and in a non-cooperative context and compare the results for the entire supply chain. This comparison can provide information about the benefits of cooperative logistics planning (i.e. Supply Chain Management), which for instance can be realized by implementing Supply Chain Management software for distribution planning purposes

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) in supply chain management: From foundations to practical implementation

Since 2015 developments such as Industry 4.0 and cyber-physical production systems on the technology side, and approaches such as flexible and smart manufacturing systems hold great potential. These in turn give rise to special requirements that the production planning, control and monitoring, among others, needing a paradigm shift to exploit the full potential of these methods and techniques. Starting from foundations in Cyber Physical Systems (CPS), building upon definitions and findings reported by literature, a practical example of innovative Cyber Physical Supply Chain Planning System (CPS2) is provided. The paper clarifies the advantages of cyber-physical systems in the production planning, controlling and monitoring perspective with respect to manufacturing, logistics and related planning practices. A set of basic features of CPS2 systems are discussed and addressed by contextualizing service orientation architecture and microservices components with respect to supply chain management collaboration and cooperation practices. The identification of specific technologies behind those functions, within the developed research, provides some practical insight if the interesting CPS2 potential

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) in supply chain management: from foundations to practical implementation

Abstract Since 2015 developments such as Industry 4.0 and cyber-physical production systems on the technology side, and approaches such as flexible and smart manufacturing systems hold great potential. These in turn give rise to special requirements that the production planning, control and monitoring, among others, needing a paradigm shift to exploit the full potential of these methods and techniques. Starting from foundations in Cyber Physical Systems (CPS), building upon definitions and findings reported by literature, a practical example of innovative Cyber Physical Supply Chain Planning System (CPS2) is provided. The paper clarifies the advantages of cyber-physical systems in the production planning, controlling and monitoring perspective with respect to manufacturing, logistics and related planning practices. A set of basic features of CPS2 systems are discussed and addressed by contextualizing service orientation architecture and microservices components with respect to supply chain management collaboration and cooperation practices. The identification of specific technologies behind those functions, within the developed research, provides some practical insight if the interesting CPS2 potential

Proceedings of the third International Workshop of the IFIP WG5.7

Contents of the papers presented at the international workshop deal with the wide variety of new and computer-based techniques for production planning and control that has become available to the scientific and industrial world in the past few years: formal modeling techniques, artificial neural networks, autonomous agent theory, genetic algorithms, chaos theory, fuzzy logic, simulated annealing, tabu search, simulation and so on. The approach, while being scientifically rigorous, is focused on the applicability to industrial environment

The future of factories: Different trends

The technological advancements promote the rise of the fourth industrial revolution, where key terms are efficiency, innovation, and enterprises’ digitalization. Market globalization, product mass customization, and more complex products need to reflect on changing the actual design methods and developing business processes and methodologies that have to be data-driven, AI-assisted, smart, and service-oriented. Therefore, there is a great interest in experimenting with emerging technologies and evaluating how they impact the actual business processes. This paper reports a comparison among the major trends in the digitalization of a Factory of the Future, in conjunction with the two major strategic programs of Industry 4.0 and China 2025. We have focused on these two programs because we have had experience with them in the context of the FIRST H2020 project. European industrialists identify the radical change in the traditional manufacturing production process as the rise of Industry 4.0. Conversely, China mainland launched its strategic plan in China 2025 to promote smart manufacturing to digitalize traditional manufacturing processes. The main contribution of this review paper is to report about a study, conducted and part of the aforementioned FIRST project, which aimed to investigate major trends in applying for both programs in terms of technologies and their applications for the factory’s digitalization. In particular, our analysis consists of the comparison between Digital Factory, Virtual Factory, Smart Manufacturing, and Cloud Manufacturing. We analyzed their essential characteristics, the operational boundaries, the employed technologies, and the interoperability offered at each factory level for each paradigm. Based on this analysis, we report the building blocks in terms of essential technologies required to develop the next generation of a factory of the future, as well as some of the interoperability challenges at a different scale, for enabling inter-factories communications between heterogeneous entities

Solving Problems of Interruptions and Multitasking in the Pharmacy of a Large Hospital Centre

This paper presents an approach to solving problems of interruptions and multitasking in inpatient pharmacy processes of a large hospital centre, which is based on statistical modelling and simulations. The approach is applied to the process of receiving deliveries (from suppliers) to determine the feasibility of improvements in the organization of work. In the initial phase of research, data on the deliveries from suppliers were collected during the time study and a typical daily load on the pharmacy staff and infrastructure in the current state was simulated. Subsequently, a new organizational model, which included two defined blocks of time for delivery, was suggested and three simulation scenarios were created to examine the effects of new organization of work on daily activities. Finally, a comparison of system constraints and results obtained by the simulation models confirmed the feasibility of the proposed improvements. By implementing the new organization of work, it will be possible to avoid overlapping in pharmacy processes, which will reduce interruptions to work and the need for multitasking and will finally result in fewer errors in work

Developing a corporate sustainability performance evaluation model of the UAE construction contractors

It is widely accepted that construction project success correlates positively with contractors’ qualifications, including their sustainability performance; this performance has to be measured to inform clients’ decisions during contractor prequalification and selection. While a significant number of sustainability evaluation systems has been developed at the project level, limited research and practice exists in sustainability evaluation of construction organisations including contracting companies. In the UAE, the accelerated policy-making process and sustainability movement represent both an opportunity to accelerate the change, and a challenge for construction companies to adapt to this change in an efficient and effective way. Clients in the UAE are thus in urgent need of selecting the right contractor for successful delivery of their sustainable projects and for design of their sustainable supply chain. The main aim of this study is to develop a multi-criteria evaluation model of the UAE construction contractors based on their sustainability performance. This study undertakes a critical review of existing corporate sustainability standards and similar studies. The existing criteria suggested by previous studies are reviewed, cross-referenced and categorised to compose a conceptual framework for the model. The model criteria and domains are then validated and updated through expert interviews followed by expert survey. The updated model is further refined and validated through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the main contractors’ questionnaire survey. First order, second order and bifactor models for the five domains have been evaluated and contrasted prior to the assessment of higher-order models. Factor analysis results reveal a poor fit of the multi-scale third-order models and suggest the adoption of ‘independent’ bifactor models for five performance evaluation scales namely: 1) policy and governance, 2) corporate workplace, 3) management of employees, 4) procurement and supply chain and 5) project delivery. The present study contributes to the academic fields of corporate sustainable construction and scale development. In practice, the developed model can be adopted by local authorities as a sustainability classification system for contractors. It can also be used by clients as a supporting decision-making tool during the prequalification stage and as part of their sustainable supply chain design. The evaluation model can also help contractors track and benchmark their performance and provide clear evidence of their sustainability performance and identify areas of necessary improvement

An Empirical Analysis to Control Product Counterfeiting in the Automotive Industry\u27s Supply Chains in Pakistan

The counterfeits pose significant health and safety threat to consumers. The quality image of firms is vulnerable to the damage caused by the expanding flow of counterfeit products in today’s global supply chains. The counterfeiting markets are swelling due to globalization and customers’ willingness to buy counterfeits, fueling illicit activities to explode further. Buyers look for the original parts are deceived by the false (deceptive) signals’ communication. The counterfeiting market has become a multi-billion industry but lacks detailed insights into the supply side of counterfeiting (deceptive side). The study aims to investigate and assess the relationship between the anti-counterfeiting strategies and improvement in the firm’s supply performance within the internal and external supply chain quality management context in the auto-parts industry’s supply chains in Pakistan