|
Description:
|
In current research literature , supply chain management (SCM ) is a hot topic
breaching the boundaries of many academic disciplines . SCM -related work can be
found in the relevant literature for many disciplines . Supply chain management can be
defined as effectively and efficiently managing the flows (information , financial and
physical ) in all stages of the supply chain to add value to end customers and gain profit
for all firms in the chain . Supply chains involve multiple partners with the common goal
to satisfy customer demand at a profit .
While supply chains are not new , the way academics and practitioners view the
need for and the means to manage these chains is relatively new . Very little literature
can be found on designing supply chains from the ground up or what dimensions of
supply chain management should be considered when designing a supply chain .
Additionally , we have found that very few tools exist to help during the design phase of
a supply chain . Moreover , very few tools exist that allow for comparing supply chain
designs .
We contribute to the current literature by determining which supply chain
management dimensions should be considered during the design process . We employ
text mining to create a supply chain design conceptual model and compare this model to existing supply chain models and reference frameworks . We continue to contribute to
the current SCM literature by applying a creative application of concepts and results in
the field of Stochastic Processes to build a custom simulator capable of comparing
different supply chain designs and providing insights into how the different designs
affect the supply chain’s total inventory cost . The simulator provides a mechanism for
testing when real -time demand information is more beneficial than using first -come ,
first -serve (FCFS ) order processing when the distributional form of lead -time demand is
derived from the supply chain operating characteristics instead of using the assumption
that lead -time demand distributions are known . We find that in many instances FCFS
out -performs the use of real -time information in providing the lowest total inventory
cost . |