Showing papers by "Kannan Govindan published in 2018"

A systematic review on drivers, barriers, and practices towards circular economy: a supply chain perspective

Abstract: In the last few years, the circular economy has received considerable attention worldwide because it offers an opportunity to optimise and promote sustainable production and consumption through new...

Big data analytics and application for logistics and supply chain management

Abstract: This special issue explores big data analytics and applications for logistics and supply chain management by examining novel methods, practices, and opportunities. The articles present and analyse a variety of opportunities to improve big data analytics and applications for logistics and supply chain management, such as those through exploring technology-driven tracking strategies, financial performance relations with data driven supply chains, and implementation issues and supply chain capability maturity with big data. This editorial note summarizes the discussions on the big data attributes, on effective practices for implementation, and on evaluation and implementation methods.

Evaluating barriers for reverse logistics implementation under a multiple stakeholders’ perspective analysis using grey decision making approach

Abstract: In the past few decades, an interest in reverse logistics has attracted the attention of industries and also has become a subject of interest for researchers. However, while reverse logistics is becoming a mandatory element of the supply chain in developed countries particularly due to legislation issues, the subject is still in a state of infancy in emerging economies such as Brazil. In these connections, impediments to reverse logistics implementation must be considered and analyzed, as well as the many different perspectives from the key stakeholders for their development. The objective of this research is to evaluate the interrelationship among reverse logistics barriers from the perspectives of the most important stakeholders in the Brazilian context. For this purpose, a Multi-Criteria Decision Making tool named grey-based Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (grey-DEMATEL) was used to extract a multiple company-customer-government association perspective. Three respondents – one expert from each stakeholder – have been consulted to obtain the pair-wise comparison of barriers. Thus, both the net effect and the importance level of each impediment are provided by means of a Euclidean distance analysis, as well as the similarities and differences among stakeholders’ opinions. The uniqueness of this paper relies on the fact that no previous work was found in the domain of multiple stakeholders’ perspective for reverse logistics barriers. This research uncovers that most of the key barriers from the reverse logistics multiple perspectives framework are from the organizational point of view. This stakeholder holds 10 out of 13 key barriers for RL implementation; as such, it is an important outcome because it indicates that firms may begin product return implementation by first tackling key internal barriers. Moreover, knowing the influential factors in their environment may assist industry managers to better implement and manage reverse flows, and to see through current and future green solutions for reverse logistics.

A multi-stage stochastic program for the sustainable design of biofuel supply chain networks under biomass supply uncertainty and disruption risk: A real-life case study

Abstract: We focus on design and planning of a biofuel supply chain (SC) network from biomass to demand centers where biomass supply is stochastic and seasonal, and facilities’ capacity varies randomly because of possible disruptions. We propose a cost-efficient multi-stage stochastic program in which the greenhouse gas emissions are mitigated and the social impact of the SC is considered. A rolling horizon procedure is presented to implement and evaluate the stochastic model solution. Computational results on a real-life case study demonstrate the proposed optimization tools’ applicability as well as the effect of disruption risk and sustainability dimensions on biofuel SC planning.

Application of data envelopment analysis models in supply chain management: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract: Supply chain management aims to designing, managing and coordinating material/product, information and financial flows to fulfill the customer requirements at low costs and thereby increasing supply chain profitability. In the last decades, data envelopment analysis has become the main topic of interest as a mathematical tool to evaluate supply chain management. While, various data envelopment analysis models have been suggested to measure and evaluate the supply chain management, there is a lack of research regarding to systematic literature review and classification of study in this field. Regarding this, some major databases including Web of Science and Scopus have been nominated and systematic and meta-analysis method which called “PRISMA” has been proposed. Accordingly, a review of 75 published articles appearing in 35 scholarly international journals and conferences between 1996 and 2016 have been attained to reach a comprehensive review of data envelopment analysis models in evaluation supply chain management. Consequently, the selected published articles have been categorized by author name, the year of publication, technique, application area, country, scope, data envelopment analysis purpose, study purpose, research gap and contribution, results and outcome, and journals and conferences in which they appeared. The results of this study indicated that areas of supplier selection, supply chain efficiency and sustainable supply chain have had the highest frequently than other areas. In addition, results of this review paper indicated that data envelopment analysis showed great promise to be a good evaluative tool for future evaluation on supply chain management, where the production function between the inputs and outputs was virtually absent or extremely difficult to acquire. The facility of multiple inputs and multiple outputs of the data envelopment analysis model was definitely an attractive one to most researchers and, therefore, the data envelopment analysis procedure had found many applications beyond supply chain management into organization and industry.

Return policy and supply chain coordination with network-externality effect

Abstract: The benefits of a consumer return policy have been extensively studied in extent literature. This paper explores the potentially damaging impact of a return policy on the retailer. We develop an analytical framework and examine the economic impact of consumer return among consumers, retailer and supply chain. We distinguish three network-externality (NE) cases: no network externality, fixed network-externality and variable network-externality contingent on return amount to discuss the retailer’s selling price, refund and inventory policies. Our analysis derives the optimal policies and shows that they take the form of contingence model in which the policies depend on consumer initial return and NE return. We also examine the influence of the consumer return NE effect on buy-back contracts of the supply chain and show that while the traditional buy-back contract fails to coordinate the supply chain, the NE effect does not render the differentiated buy-back contract less effective. Finally, we extend our st...

A novel integrated condition-based maintenance and stochastic flexible job shop scheduling problem: simulation-based optimization approach

Abstract: Integrated consideration of production planning and maintenance processes is a real world assumption. Specifically, by improving the monitoring equipment such as various sensors or product-embedded information devices in recent years, joint assessment of these processes is inevitable for enhancing the level of the system optimization. By means of this equipment, managers can benefit from a condition-based maintenance (CBM) for monitoring and managing their system. The chief aim of the paper is to develop a stochastic maintenance problem based on CBM activities engaged with a complex applied production problem called flexible job shop scheduling problem (FJSP). This integrated problem considers two maintenance scenarios in terms of corrective maintenance (CM) and preventive maintenance (PM). The activation of scenario is done by monitoring the degradation condition of the system and comparing the associated value by predetermined PM and CM levels. Moreover, to make it more realistic, the developed problem allows breakdown of the system between inspection intervals. The event time and duration of performing the maintenance activities are also considered stochastic. The developed methodology copes with high stochastic complexity of proposed problem through simulation-based optimization (SBO) approach, which works based on harmony search optimization algorithm. The developed items of SBO are discussed on different generated test problems and assessed through statistical methods and new visualization approach. Numerical example shows that the proposed method is practical for proposed integrated CBM and FJSP problem. It also offers a basis for any implementation of CBM on production problems.

Joint replenishment and pricing decisions with different freight modes considerations for a supply chain under a composite incentive contract

Abstract: Companies often offer incentive contracts to persuade buyers to order more to increase their sales volume and to decrease their setup and freight costs. More sales volume means an increase in profits, market power, and market shares. This investigation analyzes optimal pricing and replenishment decisions of a single-manufacturer/multiple-retailer supply chain where a composite contract combines quantity and freight discounts, and a free shipping contract is incorporated into the model. Here, the transportation modes of raw materials and finished products are subject to a limited capacity. The manufacturer, who faces geographically dispersed retailers, ships the ordered shipments under three different modes classified in three scenarios. In the first scenario, the shipments are shipped by identical transport modes to the retailers. In the second one, they are delivered by different transport modes in terms of their capacities regarding distance from the manufacturing site. In the third scenario, products are sent to a central warehouse for fast ship to the retailers. Demand depends on selling price and shortage is not permitted. The leader–follower game is considered between the members of the chain so that the manufacturer is a follower and the retailers are the leaders. This research aims to optimize the chain total profit concerning the selling prices and order quantities of the manufacturer and the retailers under different transport methods and a composite incentive contract. To clarify the applicability of the model, some numerical samples are presented and the effects of optimal decision policies of the chain’s partners are examined.

Introduction to Lean and Just-in-Time Manufacturing

Abstract: Lean manufacturing is widely used by industries mainly to mitigate and eliminate all kinds of waste and to improve productivity as a way of enhancing the competitiveness of organizations. A positive correlation between lean implementation and business performance has been highlighted in numerous researches.

5G Wireless with Cognitive Radio and Massive IoT

Abstract: Emerging 5G wireless communications envision very high data rates (typically of Gbps order), extremely low latency, significant increase in base station capacity and improvement in users’ perceived Quality of Experience (QoE), compared to current 4G/3G wireless networks. Rapid proliferation of smart devices, increasing number of multimedia and gaming applications, together with a non-linear increase in wireless data (multimedia) usage is already creating a significant burden on existing cellular networks. 5G wireless systems, with improved data rates, capacity, latency, and QoS are expected to alleviate these problems. The major distinctive characteristics in which 5G wireless differs from the traditional wireless systems are the following:

Lean Manufacturing Tools

Abstract: This chapter is focused on the more visible part of JIT, providing a detailed description of a set of basic lean manufacturing tools for a successful JIT implementation. The Lean tools explored in this chapter are: 5S, Standardized Work, SMED—Single Minute Exchange of Die, and Kanban System. The chapter is enriched with a case study used to explain the application of the Lean manufacturing tools in practice. Many examples of practical applications and some worksheets are incorporated to help managers in the implementation issues. In general, for each tool a detailed description of the tool and of its elements is presented. Next, the requirements for its implementation are elaborated. Afterwards, the implementation issues are explained, followed by a demonstration of the practical application of the tool in a case study company and an exposition of the results achieved.

Optimal server selection policy for improved network efficiency in smart phones

Abstract: Multimedia contents of the popular applications are downloaded generally from the mirror servers. The contents are stored in mirror servers for load balancing. The method of selecting a particular mirror server over other affects the throughput and user experience. The present domain name server (DNS) look up based mirror server selection generally picks up the server from the top of the look up list which is not optimal in most cases. In this paper we propose an alternative mirror server selection policy by constraining the Round Trip Time (RTT), TCP connect time, average throughput and number of retransmissions. The server with the satisfiable values for all the metrics will be chosen as optimal server. The metrics are applied as per preference. If more than one server satisfies all the criteria then a best server is identified from the group which has minimal RTT and connection establishment time. If no server satisfies all the criteria, then the servers which satisfy sub set of criteria will be selected and from that one sub optimal server will be chosen which has minimal RTT and connection establishment time. Our proposed solution is simple, implementable and tested for Android based devices. From the test measurements, we observe that, our proposed policy could achieve better performance in terms of reduced RTT, number of retransmissions, average throughput and energy consumptions.

Lean Manufacturing and Kaizen

Abstract: This chapter answers the questions: What is lean manufacturing? What is Kaizen? This chapter covers a brief description of lean manufacturing foundations, its main principles and wastes, and also the benefits companies can reach with the implementation of lean manufacturing best practices, grounded on several surveys reported in literature to analyse the impact of lean manufacturing on performance. The chapter also describes the Kaizen philosophy reflecting the concern with a continuous improvement culture, where strategic areas of generic continuous improvement behaviours are enhanced. The kaizen philosophy is also presented as an innovation driver. Moreover, the main characteristics of kaizen, the kaizen events, the requirements for continuous improvement success and a set of behavioural routines critical for long-term success with continuous improvement and development over time are offered too.

Optimizing TCP zero window probes for power saving in smart devices

Abstract: Smart phones have made our life easier by providing 24×7 connectivity to Internet. But, the battery capacity is a major setback for Internet connected Smart phones. We know that TCP is the backbone protocol for these Internet data transmissions. In this paper, we studied the impacts of TCP flow control mechanism on battery life. Generally, TCP flow control mechanism is used to avoid buffer overflow at the receiver and is achieved by advertising the receive buffer size as TCP window to the sender. When sender receives zero TCP window, it stops sending data and starts sending probes to receiver till space opens up in the input window. During our study, we observed some abnormal behavior, whenever video streaming or downloads were interrupted. We found that there were prolonged TCP Zero Window Probes(ZWPs) from the sender which lead to increased signalling overhead and radio ON time at receiver. This phenomenon causes unwanted battery drain. To address this particular problem, we propose a solution that prevents unnecessary packet communication due to ZWPs. We have implemented our solution for Android devices and analyzed the performance extensively based on real time measurements. In our experiments, we could achieve 10–15% of power gain consistently in smart phones.

Layer 4 Optimizer (L4O) for Enhancing Battery Life in Smart Devices

Abstract: Applications (Apps) in Smart devices make our life connected to Internet all the time. But, the battery capacity is a major setback for Internet connected Smart phones. We know that TCP is the backbone protocol for these Internet data transmissions. In this paper, we studied the impacts of TCP connection flow on Smart phone battery. We have conducted extensive experiments and collected data from various operator networks in different countries. We observe that TCP delayed closures at the client and prolonged TCP zero Window probes (ZWP) from the server lead to increased signaling overhead and radio ON time. These phenomenon cause unwanted battery drain at the smart phones. To address these problems, we propose a solution that prevents unnecessary packet communication due to TCP delayed closures and ZWPs. Our solution has been evaluated for Android devices such as Samsung Galaxy S7 and S8 variants and Tizen device such as Samsung Z3. We have found that, our solution consistently achieves 10 to 20% of power usage reduction irrespective of varying network and traffic conditions.

A method and apparatus for reducing latency of network protocols

Abstract: The embodiments herein disclose methods and systems for reducing network protocol latency for at least one application on an electronic device, a method includes pre-resolving a plurality of Domain Name System (DNS) queries for the at least one application. The plurality of DNS queries is pre-resolved before triggering at least one DNS resolution query from the at least one application. The method includes pre-connecting a plurality of TCP connections of the at least one application with at least one Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) server. The plurality of TCP connections are pre-connected before triggering at least one TCP connection request from the at least one application. The method includes exchanging a plurality of secure certificates with the at least one TCP server to secure the plurality of pre-connected TCP connections. The secure certificates are exchanged before receiving at least one request from the at least one application for secure certificate negotiation.

Final Considerations Regarding the Just-in-Time Framework

Abstract: This chapter proposes a framework to serve as a roadmap for Just in time (JIT) implementation in plants, grounded on the practical experience acquired during the implementation of a JIT plant and considering the difficulties and suggestions that emerged during the implementation process. An outlook of the JIT implementation is also included in this chapter. The chapter concludes with some final remarks and recommendations for a smooth introduction and long-lasting JIT operation in an organization.