Empirical topological investigation of practical supply chains based on complex networks

The industrial supply chain networks basically capture the circulation of social resource, dominating the stability and efficiency of the industrial system. In this paper, we provide an empirical study of the topology of smartphone supply chain network. The supply chain network is constructed using open online data. Our experimental results show that the smartphone supply chain network has small-world feature with scale-free degree distribution, in which a few high degree nodes play a key role in the function and can effectively reduce the communication cost. We also detect the community structure to find the basic functional unit. It shows that information communication between nodes is crucial to improve the resource utilization. We should pay attention to the global resource configuration for such electronic production management.

Supply Chain Network Equilibrium with Revenue Sharing Contract under Demand Disruptions

Contract is a common and effective mechanism for supply chain coordination,which has been studied extensively in recent years.For a supply chain network model,contracts can be used to coordinate it because it is too ideal to obtain the network equilibrium state in practical market competition.In order to achieve equilibrium,we introduce revenue sharing contract into a supply chain network equilibrium model with random demand in this paper.Then,we investigate the influence on this network equilibrium state from demand disruptions caused by unexpected emergencies.When demand disruptions happen,the supply chain network equilibrium state will be broken and change to a new one,so the decision makers need to adjust the contract parameters to achieve the new coordinated state through bargaining.Finally,a numerical example with a sudden demand increase as a result of emergent event is provided for illustrative purposes.

Closed-loop supply chain network equilibrium strategy model with environmental protection objectives

With the increasing popularity of ecological civilization and sustainable development,enterprises should consider environmental protection measures in their operations in addition to pursue their economic interests.This paper establsihes a closed-loop supply chain network model composed of multiple suppliers,manufacturers,retailers,recyclers,and demand markets—regarding their dual goals of the profit maximization and the minimization of carbon emissions.The conditions necessary for establishing overall equilibrium and an equilibrium model of the entire closed-loop supply chain network are determined by applying variational inequality and dual theory.A modified projection contraction algorithm is used to design a model-solving program.Finally,using numerical examples,the paper conducts a comparative static analysis on important parameters such as the weight coefficients of environmental protection objectives and consumers'awareness of low-carbon environmental protection and attains some beneficial enlightenment on management.The results indicate that when the environmental protection objectives of a certain type of enterprise increases,both the economic benefits and environmental protection performance will improve;when the environmental protection objectives of all enterprises increases simultaneously,environmental protection performance improves significantly,but the changes in economic benefits of different enterprises are inconsistent and profit coordination is more complex.Although consumers’awareness of low-carbon preference could improve environmental performance,it reduces the overall profits of network members and the entire closed-loop supply chain network as a whole.The above conclusions can be used as a reference for the government in designing low-carbon environmental protection policy and in closed-loop supply chain research.

Supply chain network design under uncertainty with new insights from contracts

In this paper, the classical problem of supply chain network design is reconsidered to emphasize the role of contracts in uncertain environments. The supply chain addressed consists of four layers: suppliers, manufacturers, warehouses, and customers acting within a single period. The single owner of the manufacturing plants signs a contract with each of the suppliers to satisfy demand from downstream. Available contracts consist of long-term and option contracts, and unmet demand is satisfied by purchasing from the spot market. In this supply chain, customer demand, supplier capacity, plants and warehouses, transportation costs, and spot prices are uncertain. Two models are proposed here: a risk-neutral two-stage stochastic model and a risk-averse model that considers risk measures. A solution strategy based on sample average approximation is then proposed to handle large scale problems. Extensive computational studies prove the important role of contracts in the design process, especially a portfolio of contracts. For instance, we show that long-term contract alone has similar impacts to having no contracts, and that option contract alone gives inferior results to a combination of option and long-term contracts. We also show that the proposed solution methodology is able to obtain good quality solutions for large scale problems.

SUPPLY CHAIN OPTIMIZATION IN CONTEXT OF PRODUCTION FLOW NETWORK

For large multinational companies, the complex production process of their finished goods usually contains plenty of stages, which constitute a production flow network. Each production stage in the production flow network can be undertaken by one or more suppliers. This study proposes a stochastic programming model for the production flow network oriented supply chain network design problem, which optimizes the decision of allocating stages to suppliers with the objective of minimizing the total expected costs of production and transportation among suppliers under uncertain demands of customers. A local branching based solution method is developed to solve the model. A case study on applying this model to a large automobile company is performed. In addition, some numerical experiments are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed model and the efficiency of the proposed solution method.

Strategy Selection of Production Technical Standards in a Manufacturing Supply Chain Network： The Role of Partnership Density

This paper presents the game of production technical standards between downstream and upstream suppliers on a manufacturing supply chain network when the two parties have different partnership densities, namely, the numbers of replaceable and mature manufacturing partners. We firstly constructed a manufacturing chain network and analyzed its three relationship structures among suppliers with the presence of different relationship densities, and found that all the three relationships brought about the game of production technical standards between partnership-rich and partnership-scanty suppliers. Then we built a two-party payoff matrix, and analyzed the two-party game and evolutionary stable strategy, based on replication dynamic equation and asymmetric evolutionary game theory. The evolutionary stable strategies of two parties under varying payoff parameters were validated through numerical simulation. Finally, we proposed some suggestions for both those manufacturers with more partners and fewer partners, respectively.

A case study on sample average approximation method for stochastic supply chain network design problem

This study aims to solve a typical long-term strategic decision problem on supply chain network design with consideration to uncertain demands. Existing methods for these problems are either deterministic or limited in scale. We analyze the impact of uncertainty on demand based on actual large data from industrial companies.Deterministic equivalent model with nonanticipativity constraints, branch-and-fix coordination, sample average approximation(SAA) with Bayesian bootstrap, and Latin hypercube sampling were adopted to analyze stochastic demands. A computational study of supply chain network with front-ends in Europe and back-ends in Asia is presented to highlight the importance of stochastic factors in these problems and the efficiency of our proposed solution approach.