Optimal replenishment and sales team initiatives for pharmaceutical products – A mathematical model

AbstractThe paper addresses an inventory model of pharmaceutical products where the demand rate of the customers increases with the volume of the initiatives of the sales team. In this model, the deterioration of the product varies depending on on-hand inventory. The volume of sales team initiatives is a control variable. It is dependent on on-hand inventory and vice versa. The profit function of the farm is formulated by the trading of inventory costs, purchasing costs, losses due to deterioration and sales team initiative costs, considering inflation and the time value of the monetary cost and profit parameters. Finally, the profit function is maximized by a variation of the calculus method. A numerical example is given to justify our model

A country-based review in COVID-19 related research developments

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned our life topsy-turvy. It has bought a massive change in all sectors around the world. A great number of research papers have already been published accounting for various aspects of the COVID-19 issue, owing to the ever-increasing interest in this hot area. The essential data is gathered using the well-known and dependable search engine SCOPUS. We looked at research papers, journals, and reviews from 25 leading countries to highlight a comprehensive study of research output through COVID-19 papers. This study focuses on the top authors, leading articles, and journals from various nations, the percentage of published papers in various fields, and the top collaborative research work from different authors and countries. USA, UK, China, Italy, and India have all made a significant contribution to COVID-19 research. The USA is the leading country followed by UK and China but for H-index China is in the best position. The highest number of papers has been developed in the area of "medicine". The Harvard Medical School of the UK contributed the highest number of papers followed by the University of Toronto of Canada. Professor K. Dhama of India has published the highest number of papers while C. Huang of China received the highest number of citations. It also highlights that several authors have differing opinions on the efficacy of taking the medicine remdesivir. Our research provides a complete and comprehensive image of the virus’s current research status, or in other words, a roadmap of the present research status

A review on remanufacturing, reuse, and recycling in supply chain—Exploring the evolution of information technology over two decades

Remanufacturing, reuse, and recycling in supply chain (RRR & Supply chain) are recently gaining significant attention from researchers. This bibliometric study aims to make overall research scenarios on RRR & Supply chain by analyzing the published papers. For a collection of exclusive papers in this area, we rely on the well-known trustworthy database SCOPUS. The bibliometric study is done by the contents of publication and citation structure of influential papers, leading authors, institutions, and countries, citation structure of top ten journals, country analysis in the area of RRR & Supply chain research. Present study reveals that S.M. Gupta has the highest number of publications, the USA is the most influential country, the renowned ‘Journal of Cleaner Production’ has published the greatest number of papers, and the Institute ‘Huazhong University of Science and Technology’ has the highest number of publications in this field. Through data mining this work revealed that closed loop supply chain, industry, waste, review, policy, circular economy, and sustainability are mostly used keywords while highly cited articles frequently used keywords like supply chain management; closed-loop supply chain; reverse logistics; article; logistics; manufacture; costs; decision making; environmental impact; and waste management. This study will help to fill the research gap and show a roadmap for future research direction in this area

Research in Production and Operations Management: A University-Based Bibliometric Analysis

Universities across the world are contributing greatly to production and operations management (POM) research and playing significant roles in social and economic development. This article analyzes the performance of universities in POM research and development between 1990 and 2014. The Web of Science core collection database is used to collect all the necessary data. The results show a wide diversity among the countries of origin of the top universities, with some of them being in Asia, Europe, and North America. These results are quite different from many other management areas where English-speaking countries, especially the USA, tend to be dominant. Hong Kong Polytechnic University is the most productive university, while Michigan State University is the most influential one. Time-based evolution reveals that the USA previously had a more dominant position, while now there is more distribution of top universities around the world. The analysis of selected journals indicates that many journals tend to be more influenced by their respective countries of origin. However, other journals show a more general profile by publishing papers from most of the countries around the world

Managing a two-echelon supply chain with price, warranty and quality dependent demand

This paper deals with a two-layer supply chain composed of one manufacturer and one retailer for single-type product. The demand function of the end customers depends on quality, warranty, and sales price of the product. The profit functions of the manufacturer and the retailers are maximized under centralized and decentralized approaches. Our study suggests that the joint profit in centralized system is always more than the decentralized system. Finally, the surplus profit in centralized system is shared according to their profits in decentralized system

Effects of network externalities and recycling channels on closed-loop supply chain operation incorporating consumers’ dual preferences

Consumers’ awareness of environmental protection is gradually strengthened, and they often consider environmental protection characteristics of products during purchasing products. Based on the characteristic of consumers’ dual preferences for product quality and environmental friendliness, this paper constructs a novel closed-loop supply chain with network externalities for new products and remanufactured products under different waste product recycling channel strategies. It discusses the influence of product recycling channel strategies and network externalities on the optimal decision of the company. By establishing the Stackelberg game model, the analysis found that the retail price of new products and remanufactured products is not affected by network externalities and recycling channel strategies, even if the wholesale price of remanufactured products increases with the influence of network externalities. The changing trend of market demand for new products and remanufactured products is different between products with network externalities and without network externalities. When the cost of remanufactured products is within certain range, the existence of network externalities makes the market demand for new products and remanufactured products increase simultaneously. Our study also found that even if products have positive network externalities that increases consumer utility, when the cost of remanufactured products is outside certain range, the company’s profit will be higher when products have no network externalities than that when products have network externalities

Thirty years of the International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing: a bibliometric analysis

The International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing was established in 1988 with the idea of advancing research in computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) technologies and promoting the application of those technologies within industry. The journal was created to facilitate the exchange of new knowledge between industry and academia derived from both research and practical application. To celebrate the 30-year journey of the journal, this study develops a bibliometric analysis of all the publications of the journal to 2017. Information was collected using the Web of Science Core Collection database. The present study has been conducted to highlight the significant contributions of the journal in terms of impact, topics, authors, universities and countries. Finally, visualisation of similarities (VOS) viewer software was used to present graphical representations of the bibliographic coupling, co-citation, citation, co-authorship and co-occurrence of keywords