The main purpose of this chapter is to present a possible alternative for optimization of supply chain management. The chapter discusses the virtual organization as an important tool for optimization of supply chain management. A simple model for discussing organization of supply chain is introduced, which serves as an important starting point for assessing the current organization of the suppl...

Strategically focused companies are increasingly squeezing efficiencies from their supply chains to enhance their competitive posture. Built on the seminal works of Harrigan (1985) in vertical integration and Hayes and Wheelwright (1979a,b) in product life cycles, this study moves toward an integrating model of supply chain management with moderating effects of environmental variables.

High volume production flows are modeled by nonlinear hyperbolic partial differential equations representing conservation laws. These models have Little’s law explicitly built into the formulation. Borrowing from concepts in gas dynamics and vehicular traffic models we derive several prototypical equations representing linear as well as reentrant factories. Multiple products, dispatch polices a...

Supply chains in industry have a very complex structure. The influence of many parameters is not known. Therefore the control of the material flow is rather difficult. In order to recognize these relationships between the parameters, initially very simple models have to be established. For this examination a linear supply chain with 4 stages will be designed. In all stages the stock is closed-l...

We analyze the sourcing decision of a buyer choosing between two supplier types: responsible suppliers are costly but adhere to strict social and environmental responsibility standards, while risky suppliers are less expensive but may experience responsibility violations. A segment of the consumer population, called socially conscious, is willing to pay a higher price for a product sourced from...

Supply chains can act as effective mechanisms for raising environmental and social standards but can be very blunt instruments. While supply chain action can bring sustainability gains, it can also have unintended negative consequences and cause considerable resentment at the mismatch between costs and benefits along the chain. This article looks at how and why supply chains are being used to i...

We study the price competition of two supply chains with demand uncertainty. Each supply chain consists of one risk-averse manufacturer and one risk-averse retailer. We consider two cases: two competing decentralized supply chains and two competing integrated supply chains. We analyze the effects of the demand uncertainty on the supply chains’ expected profits. In the first case, we find that t...

One of the primary objectives of National Immunization Programs is to strengthen and optimize immunization supply chains so that vaccines are delivered to the end recipients effectively, efficiently and sustainably. As a result of larger investments in global health and a wider portfolio of vaccines, global agencies are recognizing the need for vaccine supply chains to operate at their most opt...

The aim of this review paper is to bring into light a potential area i.e., web services supply chains for research by analyzing the existing state of art in this. It is observed from the review process that there seems to be much less work done in the area of web service supply chains as compared to e-commerce and product oriented service supply chains. The service quality assurance models, end...

Although large organisations have invested significant amounts of money to integrate their supply chains, the development of supply chain integration among Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) is slow-moving. For SMEs, integration is a significant problem due to high costs and technology requirements. Hence, they follow different approach to integrate their supply chains. In authors’ previo...