Supply chain management

About: Supply chain management is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 39055 publications have been published within this topic receiving 1082949 citations. The topic is also known as: SCM.

Quantitative Models for Supply Chain Management

Abstract: From the Publisher: Quantitative models and computer based tools are essential for making decisions in today's business environment. These tools are of particular importance in the rapidly growing area of supply chain management. This volume is a unified effort to provide a systematic summary of the large variety of new issues being considered, the new set of models being developed, the new techniques for analysis, and the computational methods that have become available recently. The volume's objective is to provide a self-contained, sophisticated research summary - a snapshot at this point of time - in the area of Quantitative Models for Supply Chain Management. This volume can serve as a graduate text, as a reference for researchers and as a guide for further development of this field.

The role of supply management capabilities in green supply

Abstract: Managers realize that they should avoid complex green supply initiatives when they do not have the capabilities to implement them. However, they have little guidance on how these capabilities can be developed. This paper provides an initial analysis of the role of supply management capabilities in green supply. We argue that the implementation of green supply is better explained by focusing on the development and deployment of an organization's specialized internal resources, rather than by the more usual focus on external environmental pressures on a firm. Further, we argue that capabilities appropriate for green supply are developed by a proactive corporate environmental stance and by a more strategic purchasing and supply management approach. We test our model using data from a two-phase survey of 70 operating units within UK public limited companies. Our results indicate support for our conjecture that supply management capabilities are jointly developed by a proactive corporate environmental approach and a strategic purchasing and supply process. Our study results should be useful to business strategists, regulators, and researchers interested in the predictors of corporate green behavior. They should also assist future researchers in many branches of environmental management who are seeking to explore the role of the internal capabilities of firms in supporting environmental management.

The Quantity Flexibility Contract and Supplier-Customer Incentives

Abstract: Consider a supply chain consisting of two independent agents, a supplier e.g., a manufacturer and its customer e.g., a retailer, the latter in turn serving an uncertain market demand. To reconcile manufacturing/procurement time lags with a need for timely response to the market, such supply chains often must commit resources to production quantities based on forecasted rather than realized demand. The customer typically provides a planning forecast of its intended purchase, which does not entail commitment. Benefiting from overproduction while not bearing the immediate costs, the customer has incentive to initially overforecast before eventually purchasing a lesser quantity. The supplier must in turn anticipate such behavior in its production quantity decision. This individually rational behavior results in an inefficient supply chain. This paper models the incentives of the two parties, identifying causes of inefficiency and suggesting remedies. Particular attention is given to the Quantity Flexibility QF contract, which couples the customer's commitment to purchase no less than a certain percentage below the forecast with the supplier's guarantee to deliver up to a certain percentage above. Under certain conditions, this method can allocate the costs of market demand uncertainty so as to lead the individually motivated supplier and customer to the systemwide optimal outcome. We characterize the implications of QF contracts for the behavior and performance of both parties, and the supply chain as a whole.

Ensuring supply chain resilience: development of a conceptual framework

Abstract: The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. In a world of turbulent change, resilience is a key competency since even the most carefully designed supply chain is susceptible to unforeseen events. This article presents a new Supply Chain Resilience Framework to help businesses deal with change. The conceptual framework is based on extant literature and refined through a focus group methodology. Our findings suggest that supply chain resilience can be assessed in terms of two dimensions: vulnerabilities and capabilities. The Zone of Resilience is defined as the desired balance between vulnerabilities and capabilities, where it is proposed that firms will be the most profitable in the long term. We identified seven vulnerability factors composed of 40 specific attributes and 14 capability factors from 71 attributes that facilitate the measurement of resilience. The article concludes with managerial implications and recommendations for future research.