Design of agile supply chains including analysing the trade-off between number of partners and reliability

The reliability of supply partners is particularly vital in agile supply chains as it is vulnerable to the inability of a supply partner to meet its high responsiveness and flexibility requirements resulting in the disruption of the whole network. Disruption can have expensive and extensive results for the entire agile supply chain. To mitigate the risk of disruption and improve the reliability of the whole agile supply chain, decision-makers need to pay more attention to supply chain design and construction, whilst simultaneously taking into account the sourcing strategy decisions. This paper proposes a series of models for the design of agile supply chains using dynamic programming modelling. These provide decision-makers with a systematic way of analysing one of the key decisions of sourcing strategy, namely the trade-off between the number of supply partners and reliability. The efficacy of the models is demonstrated through their application to a Chinese bus and coach manufacturer by way of an empirical illustration. The results show that this approach is effective for this application and it can be applied in other related decision-making scenarios. The methods offered in this paper provide managers with a practical tool to design their agile supply chains while considering the trade-offs between the number of partners and the reliability of the entire agile supply chain

Simulation modelling of hospital outpatient department: a bibliometric analysis and a literature classification

This is the author accepted manuscript.The increase in demand for outpatient departments (OPD) has contributed to overcrowded clinics and patient dissatisfaction. Computer simulation can help decision-makers meet the operational challenge of balancing the demand for outpatient services with considerations of available capacity. The paper presents a synthesis of the literature on simulation modelling in OPD using two approaches: a bibliometric analysis (employing keyword co-occurrence network) and a literature classification focusing on OPD strategy, OPD performance measures and simulation techniques. Our review is based on 161 papers, published between 2006 and 2020, identified through a methodological search of the literature. The objective of the review is threefold: (i) to identify the major and emerging research issues in general and specialized OPD, (ii) to find the commonly used performance measures in OPD and how it is associated with the strategies used to improve the performance, and (iii) to identify the commonly used simulation methods for OPD modelling. A key finding from the bibliometric analysis is that most OPD research can be classified under one of the four clusters – “organization and management”, “patient satisfaction”, “overbooking” and “performance”. We also find that patient waiting time has received much attention among the performance measures reported in the literature, followed by server idle time/overtime (server here is the OPD consultant or other healthcare resource). Our review serves as a key reference point for scholars, practitioners, students, and healthcare stakeholders, and those who use quantitative tools to aid operational decision-making

Application of Synchrotron Radiation–Computed Tomography In-Situ Observations and Digital Volume Correlation to Study Low-Cycle Fatigue Damage Micromechanisms in Lost Foam Casting A319 Alloy

International audienceThe synchrotron radiation–computed tomography (SR-CT) and digital volume correlation (DVC) methods were used to investigate the damage micromechanisms of lost foam casting (LFC) A319 alloy in low-cycle fatigue (LCF). LCF tests with SR-CT in-situ observations allow visualizing the damage evolution process in the bulk. DVC measures the mechanical fields and, thus, allows establishing the relations between crack initiation and propagation, mechanical fields, and microstructure. Cracks initiate at and propagate along hard inclusions due to strain localizations. The damage process, i.e., crack initiation and propagation, can be considered as a series of failure events of hard inclusions under strain localizations. The pores’ size, shape, location, and number were observed to have an influence on crack initiation, while the interconnected hard inclusion networks guarantee the continuous failure events of hard inclusions and, thus, provide crack propagation paths