The investigation of supply chain's reliability measure: a case study

In this paper, using supply chain operational reference, the reliability evaluation of available relationships in supply chain is investigated. For this purpose, in the first step, the chain under investigation is divided into several stages including first and second suppliers, initial and final customers, and the producing company. Based on the formed relationships between these stages, the supply chain system is then broken down into different subsystem parts. The formed relationships between the stages are based on the transportation of the orders between stages. Paying attention to the system elements' location, which can be in one of the five forms of series namely parallel, series/ parallel, parallel/series, or their combinations, we determine the structure of relationships in the divided subsystems. According to reliability evaluation scales on the three levels of supply chain, the reliability of each chain is then calculated. Finally, using the formulas of calculating the reliability in combined systems, the reliability of each system and ultimately the whole system is investigated.