Pour survivre sur le long terme, les entreprises dépendent des innovations discontinues. Ce type d’innovation est nourri dès le début du processus d’innovation (fuzzy front-end) par la créativité collective des employés répartis sur les entités internationales de l’entreprise. Le management se voit confronté à un défi important : comment faire innover des employés qui ne sont pas physiquement localisés au même endroit ? La présente recherche propose un levier novateur pour substituer l’espace physique entre les collaborateurs lors du fuzzy front-end. Le ProxIS-Télescope est une solution compacte pour les entreprises afin de rapprocher leurs salariés dans l’optique de générer des combinaisons inattendues de leurs connaissances. De plus, cette recherche montre que le véritable défi des entreprises n’est pas seulement l’extension internationale au niveau du fuzzy front-end, mais également le management d’une équipe croissante en termes de masse salariale. L’extension dynamique du ProxIS-modèle permet de l’adapter à tout type d’entreprise en fonction du nombre de personnes ainsi que du degré d’internationalisation de l’entreprise. / To assure their long term survival, organizations depend on discontinuous innovations. This type of innovation is nurtured by collective creativity between employees of an organization’s subsidiaries starting from the early phase of the innovation process (fuzzy front-end). Management faces an important challenge here: how to innovate if employees are not physically located at the same place? This research proposes an innovative approach to compensate geographic space at the fuzzy front-end. The resulting ProxIS-Telescope represents a compact solution for organizations in order to enhance the collaboration between employees independently of their location and to create unexpected combinations of knowledge. Furthermore, this research reveals that a crucial challenge for companies is not only the international expansion during the fuzzy front-end, but also the management of a growing workforce. The dynamic extension of the ProxIS-model proposes thus appropriate solutions for each organizational type depending on the number of actors and the international dimension during the fuzzy front-end.

Substantial benefits can be achieved through the adoption of lean type thinking earlier at the design stage to create more viable products. A complex design cannot be easily leaned out in production; therefore, the production of affordable and sustainable products requires effective lean design considerations at the conceptual level. The research presented in this thesis investigates and demonstrates the application of lean design for product enhancement. The aim of the research was to develop a novel lean design framework that would support the generation of product design with attributes such as maximise value, manufacturable, and operable with minimum waste and resources ensuring avoidable harm is eliminated. The framework consists of a systemised process which is organised in to phases and activities that provides a unique practical manner to lean out a design. The construction of the framework initiated with an extensive literature review and proceeded with an industrial field study which consisted of 34 interviews with 11 manufacturing companies in Europe. The findings were amalgamated to generate a lean design definition and principles which would form the foundations of the framework. A real-life industrial case study of an offshore oil/water separator was used to validate the framework. In conclusion, the lean design framework provides the necessary means by which a lean design can be achieved. As a result a functionally viable and enhanced design that is cheaper to manufacture through controlling waste and eliminating avoidable harm occurrence can be realised with minimal effort. The research makes the following contributions: (1) identification of essential elements in lean design, (2) generation of a lean design definition and principles, (3) Lean Design Framework development and (4) illustrative guidelines based on the framework to be used by designers in realising a lean product design.

This doctoral thesis investigates the application of simulation-based optimization (SBO) as an alternative to conventional optimization techniques when the inherent uncertainty and complex features of real manufacturing systems need to be considered. Inspired by a real-world production planning setting, we provide a general formulation of the situation as an extended knapsack problem. We proceed by proposing a solution approach based on single and multi-objective SBO models, which use simulation to capture the uncertainty and complexity of the manufacturing system and employ meta-heuristic optimizers to search for near-optimal solutions. Moreover, we consider the design of matheuristic approaches that combine the advantages of population-based meta-heuristics with mathematical programming techniques. More specifically, we consider the integration of mathematical programming techniques during the initialization stage of the single and multi-objective approaches as well as during the actual search process. Using data collected from a manufacturing company, we provide evidence for the advantages of our approaches over conventional methods (integer linear programming and chance-constrained programming) and highlight the synergies resulting from the combination of simulation, meta-heuristics and mathematical programming methods. In the context of the same real-world problem, we also analyse different single and multi-objective SBO models for robust optimization. We demonstrate that the choice of robustness measure and the sample size used during fitness evaluation are crucial considerations in designing an effective multi-objective model.

Le secteur automobile est aujourd’hui face au paradoxe de la personnalisation de masse. La diversité de produits finis est en augmentation perpétuelle du fait de la croissance de la personnalisation offerte au client. La diversité de composants à laquelle doivent faire faces les Chaînes Logistiques résulte de cette diversité de produits finis à fabriquer. Même si le coût de la diversité reste difficilement mesurable, cette diversité à un impact majeur sur la performance économique des entreprises de production. Dans le secteur automobile, une grande partie de ces coûts sont induits par le nombre très important de contraintes entre composants. De façon opérationnelle, ces contraintes rendent difficile la définition de nomenclature. Dans cette thèse, nous étudions une nouvelle façon de représenter la diversité. Aussi, pour limiter l’inflation de la diversité de composants à gérer, les fabricants doivent améliorer sans cesse leurs processus de conception et de production. L’usage d’une architecture modulaire des produits doit permettre de simplifier ces contraintes et donc la diversité de composants. Le succès de la mise en place d’une telle architecture dépend d’un certain nombre de conditions que nous étudions aussi dans cette thèse. Enfin, parce que la diversité de composants peut aussi résulter d’une vision locale des enjeux de diversité en phase de conception, cette thèse propose aussi une méthode de standardisation des modules et de leurs composants invisibles du client, basée sur une vision économique globale. / Nowadays, the automotive sector faces the mass customization paradox. The end-product diversity is constantly increasing as the customer can customize more and more product features. The component variety that Supply Chains must deal with, results from the end-product variety to make. Though variety cost is hard to measure, variety has a great impact on the economic performance of today's manufacturers. In the automotive sector, a large portion of these costs are due to the great amount of constraints between components. On an operational point of view, these constraints lead to difficulties in the establishment of Bills of Materials. In this thesis, we define a new approach that describes the variety within Bills of Materials. In addition, in order to limit the inflation of component variety to manage, companies should improve continuously their design and manufacturing processes. The use of a modular architecture should allow to reduce the number of constraints between components and as a consequence, to reduce the component variety. The success of the application of such architecture depends on some prerequisites that we also focus on in this thesis. Finally, as component variety might result also from local interests in design phases, this thesis proposes also a model that aims at standardizing both modules and their components that is based on a global economic perspective.

In this era of globalisation and fierce competition amongst businesses, there is a need to improve advanced operations management philosophies such as just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing to enhance business performance. Literature review shows that there is no mechanism so far to identify key JIT drivers relevant to a given organisation and its production processes, and their impact on enterprise performance. The research carried out here therefore involved the development of a generic performance measurement model to identify and capture the influence of JIT practices on enterprise performance. A conceptual performance measurement model, which was designed based on comprehensive literature review and informal interviews/discussions with both academic researchers and industry practitioners describes the link between JIT drivers (Xi) and measurable performance (Y). This mathematically determined model is aimed at assisting managers in the systematic identification of the influence of key JIT drivers on enterprise performance using a multidimensional tool such as the extended balanced scorecard. The case study approach was selected as the most suitable methodology for testing and validating the conceptual model in JIT enabled production plant and was applied to the production process of Denso Manufacturing (UK) Ltd., a global automotive component manufacturer. A novel eight-step implementation procedure was designed to collect data, which were analysed and validated by design of experiments, linear mathematical modelling, computer based dynamic simulation and analytic hierarchy process tool. The performance measurement model was then successfully applied to a non-automotive component production plant (Risane Ltd.). In conclusion, the performance measurement model can now be suitably applied to JIT enabled manufacturing environments using relevant organisation specific JIT drivers and key performance indicators to optimise system performance. The contribution to knowledge is an innovative, user friendly, robust and multidimensional performance measurement model enabling industry practitioners to optimise JIT processes with substantial performance enhancement. The model could also be applied by future researchers to other operations management philosophies and industries, and at a higher level could be developed into a self-optimising software package, which will enable rapid determination of the key control parameters needed to optimise process performance just in time.

M. Tech. (Logistics management, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology / The growth and development of SCM is attributed to number of factors such as partnership, collaboration, integration and relationship commitment. Despite increasing awareness of the importance of joint venture to organisations, research on the supply chain relationships (supply chain partnership, collaboration, integration and relationship commitment) and performance have received little attention. Therefore, using a data set of 271 individuals from the small and medium enterprise (SMEs) sector in South Africa, this study examines the influence of supply chain partnerships on collaboration, collaboration on integration, integration on relationship commitment and relationship commitment on performance. Structural equation modeling (SEM) method was used to analyses the data collected whereby individuals agrees with that supply chain relationships increase performance in the work environment. The study has developed a supply chain management (SCM)-based performance measurement system (PMS) for the case of SMEs. Such a framework may help SMEs managers to establish their own supply chain functions and strategically plan improvements for weak areas. In addition, it may remain helpful for benchmarking current practices with industry norms requirements. Quite often, companies dealing with a large number of performance measures derived and expanded based on the suggestions from employees, consultants and past experiences (history) forget to realise that supply chain performance measurement can be better addressed when they joint venture.

D. Tech. (Business, Logistics, Faculty of Management Sciences) Vaal University of Technology / The effective implementation of intra-firm and inter-firm supply chain practices and processes such as supply chain e-collaboration and sharing of important information among supply chain partners, is commonly associated with the creation of supply chain competitiveness and enhanced performance. However, little attention has, thus far, been given to the empirical investigation of the influence of the successful implementation of intra-firm supply chain practice on supply chain e-collaboration, strategic information sharing, supply chain competence and supply chain performance in South Africa. The principal objective of this study was to fill this void by investigating the influence of intra-firm supply chain practice on supply chain e-collaboration among supply chain partners in South Africa. Secondly, the study sought to determine the influence of supply chain e-collaboration on strategic information and supply chain competence among supply chain partners in South Africa. It also aimed to examine the influence of strategic information sharing on supply chain competence and ultimately on the supply chain performance of supply chain partners in South Africa. Lastly, the study sought to ascertain the influence of supply chain competence on supply chain performance of supply chain partners in South Africa. A positivist approach that allowed a quantitative research method in data collection was used in this study. Data from a sample of 280 collaborating firm owners/managers from all the industries of South Africa’s nine provinces was used for the final data analysis of this research. A principal component analysis was performed for factor reduction and dimensional groupings using SPSS 21 software. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were performed for model fit assessments and hypotheses tests respectively, using the Analysis of Moments of Structure (AMOS 21) software. Multiple Regression analysis was performed using SPSS 21 software, and was used for comparison and support of the weak and unsupported SEM hypotheses tests. The principal finding of this study reveals that intra-firm supply chain practice has a strong positive and significant influence on supply chain e-collaboration among supply chain partners in South Africa. In addition, the results showed that supply chain e-collaboration can strongly and significantly enhance the sharing of strategic information among supply chain partners in South Africa. The findings further revealed that supply chain e-collaboration has an ability to create a supply chain competence among supply chain partners in South Africa. The study’s empirical findings also indicate that strategic information sharing has a weak positive and significant indirect influence on supply chain competence and supply chain performance. Lastly, the SEM findings showed that supply chain competence has a weak negative and insignificant influence on supply chain performance. However, the multiple regression analysis showed a weak negative and significant influence of supply chain competence on the supply chain performance of supply chain partners in South Africa. The conclusions and implications of the empirical research findings are provided and recommendations are suggested. The study suggests a new supply chain management conceptual model for research. It also proposes a new supply chain management implementation framework to help guide firms to formulate strategies for improving supply chain performance. The study recommended that the collaborating firm owners/managers consider: training and education for all employees on the importance of supply chain practices and processes such as supply chain e-collaboration and strategic information sharing. Furthermore, it is recommended that collaborating firm owner/managers should consider adopting advanced technologies and information sharing structures to improve their supply chain performance. The collaborating firm owner/managers were also encouraged to align their incentives with the supply chain roles and activities assigned to the supply chain partners. Policy makers were encouraged to make e-business financing arrangements for supply chain collaborating firms; promote synergies between collaborating small and mediums firms and large technology vendors; and ensure affordability of supply chain e-collaboration technologies. The study attempted to address the intra-firm supply chain practice deficiencies on the side of both the supply chain e-collaborating firms and the government. / Research Hubs and Spokes

Cette thèse porte sur l’analyse du processus d’adoption par le client d’une innovation commerciale. Plus particulièrement, elle étudie le rôle de la Socialisation Organisationnelle du Client sur le lien entre la Satisfaction Relationnelle et la Fidélité client à une nouvelle forme de vente. Dans cette optique, nous avons réalisé une étude exploratoire dans le but d’identifier les variables favorisant le succès d’une innovation commerciale ainsi que le processus d’adoption et d’apprentissage d’une innovation commerciale. La particularité de notre démarche réside dans le fait d’avoir interrogé différents segments de clients (et de non clients) mais aussi d’avoir observé les collaborateurs d’un DRIVE (Click&Carry). La première partie aboutit ainsi à une modélisation de l’adoption d’une innovation commerciale que nous testons dans la deuxième partie auprès de clients et d’employés. De plus, nous mettons en relation l’extraction des données de consommation des clients interrogés avec les données déclaratives issues des clients et des employés de contact.Les résultats de la recherche corroborent le rôle modérateur de la Socialisation Organisationnelle du Client (SOC) et de la Perception de la Socialisation Organisationnelle de l’Employé (PSOE), leur rôle variant en fonction du type d’innovation commerciale observée. Il en va de même au sujet du lien entre la Socialisation Organisationnelle de l’Employé (SOE) et, la Socialisation Organisationnelle du Client (SOC) d’une part, et, d’autre part, la Perception de la Socialisation Organisationnelle de l’Employé (PSOE), bien qu’il ne s’agisse que d’une démarche exploratoire / This thesis focuses on the analysis of a retailing innovation adoption process by customers. More in particular it examines the effect of Customer Organizational Socialization on the relationship between Relational Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty to a new form of selling.Towards this end, we conducted an exploratory study to identify variables promoting the success of a retailing innovation as well as the adoption and learning processes of a new form of selling. The advantage of our approach lies not only on having surveyed various customers and non-customers groups but also on having observed employees of a "Click and Collect". The first part led to a model of the adoption of a retailing innovation. In the second part, we tested this model on the basis of a customer and employee database. In addition, we related the extraction of our surveyed customers consumption data with declarative data from customers and contact employees.The research findings support the moderating effect of Customer Organizational Socialization (COS) and the Perception of Employee Organizational Socialization (PEOS), their role varying depending on the type of the retailing innovation. The same results are obtained about the relationship between Employee Organizational Socialization (EOS) and Customer Organizational Socialization (COS) on one part, and the Perception of Employee Organizational Socialization (PEOS) on the other part, although it is only an exploratory approach

Ces dernières années, la conception de produit vise de plus en plus à remettre le client aucentre du processus de développement. De nouvelles méthodes et outils ont permis de formaliser nonseulement l’identification des besoins et des attentes du client mais également leur transformation enexigences. Cependant, malgré les progrès récemment apparus dans ce domaine, la notion de valeurperçue par le client qui est associée au produit reste faiblement considérée durant le développement duproduit alors que la perception de cette valeur par le client va jouer un rôle clé au moment du choix duproduit.Dans cette thèse, nous proposons une approche normative visant l’intégration de la notion devaleur du produit dans le processus d’établissement des exigences. Un état de l’art présente lesconcepts et les pratiques impliqués dans le déploiement de la fonction de qualité, étroitement liée auprocessus de spécification des exigences basé sur la valeur. Ces concepts sont relatifs aux notionsd’objectifs, de modèles de la valeur, de fonctions d’utilité multi attributs et de hiérarchie et de réseauxd’objectifs.Notre approche se déroule en 4 étapes : (1) identifier et structurer les objectifs à partir del’expression des attentes du client, (2) spécifier les attributs de la valeur perçue par le client etconstruire un modèle de la valeur client, (3) transformer les objectifs en exigences pour construire unmodèle global de la valeur produit et (4) dériver ce modèle global en un modèle de la valeur pourchaque composant du produit. Cette approche permet ainsi de prendre en compte explicitement lavaleur produit perçue par le client en l’intégrant dans les phases de développement, ce qui favorise uneconception proactive dirigée par la valeur.Nous l’illustrons sur un exemple d’avion de ligne développé en Vanguard Studio. Cet exemplea été élaboré par l’ensemble des partenaires au cours du projet Européen IST CRESCENDO et sert decas-test pour ce projet / Recently customer-based product development is becoming a popular paradigm. Customer needsand expectations are identified and transformed into requirements in systematic processes for productdesign with the help of various methods and tools. However, in many cases, these approaches fail tofocus on the perceived value that is crucially important when customers make the decision ofpurchasing a product. The requirements specification derived from these approaches are typicallyvalue-implicit.In this thesis, a prescriptive approach to derive value-based requirements specification is proposedby integrating the concept of value into the house of quality of quality function deployment. Anintegrated set of theories, methods and concepts is introduced in order to mitigate the sevenmethodological problems of house of quality regarding to establishing appropriate value-basedrequirements specification. The foundations of the approach include concepts of objective, valuemodel and consequence model, methods of means-ends objectives network, fundamental objectiveshierarchy, response surface methodology and value-driven design, and theory of multi-attribute utilitytheory. The procedure of the approach is a four-step process: (1) identify and structure objectives frominitial customer statements of expectations, (2) specify attributes and construct customer value model,(3) transform fundamental objectives into engineering characteristics to construct system value model,and (4) derive component value models from system value model. Through this procedure, initialcustomer statements can be reasonably derived into customer value model, system value model andcomponent value model. The benefits of the approach are that it enables (1) reasonably qualifying andquantifying customer value, and performing value modeling and simulation, (2) perceived customervalue being subsequently used reactively for design evaluation, and proactively for value-drivendesign.The approach is applied in the context of a European Community’s R&D project CRESCENDO tohelp constructing airlines’ group value model for commercial aircraft development. This applicationfocuses on the first two-steps of the approach, and the value models are implemented in businesssoftware Vanguard Studio

L’environnement urbain est fortement ancré dans la gestion des flux logistiques. La mutualisation de ces différents flux apporte alors une solution qualitative répondant aux critères environnementaux, économiques et sociétaux. Cette thèse propose une approche pour la mise en place des centres de distribution urbains (CDU) en combinant la logistique de distribution avec la logistique inverse (flux montants et flux descendants). L’objectif principal de ces CDU est d'assurer un développement durable dans les villes modernes. L’hétérogénéité des pratiques de la logistique de distribution et de la logistique inverse constitue le principal verrou scientifique. La mutualisation de ces différents flux apporte alors une solution qualitative et durable dès lors qu’elle répond aux critères attendus : environnementaux, économiques et sociétaux. Dans un contexte de logistique globale, nous nous sommes basés sur les problèmes de localisation de plateformes HLP « Hub Location Problem » afin de formuler le problème de localisation des CDU selon un critère de maximisation du profit par le choix du meilleur emplacement parmi ceux disponibles. Nous avons calculé les localisations partiellement possibles, tout en garantissant le traitement des flux retournés (collecte, tri, revente) et aussi en tenant compte des coûts socio-environnementaux. Par la suite, nous avons utilisé des outils de résolution du modèle proposé via des algorithmes d’optimisation. L’efficacité de ces algorithmes a été confirmée par un ensemble de jeux de données et de rapports d’analyse d’impacts. La dynamique liée à la fiabilité des CDU dans l’exécution du service par la prise en compte d’une politique de coordination inter-CDU fait aussi partie de notre étude. Nous nous sommes intéressés à l’aspect de disponibilité pour garantir les livraisons à temps. En effet, l’indisponibilité du système peut être due aux pannes aléatoires, aux actions de maintenance préventive planifiées, etc. Par conséquent, nous présentons une solution qui permet de satisfaire la demande journalière de manière ponctuelle par l’intégration d’une approche collaborative entre les différents sites. Il s’agit d’un modèle d’optimisation de la politique de coordination inter-CDU avec une stratégie de sous-traitance des livraisons en cas d’indisponibilité / The urban environment is strongly involved in the management of logistics flows. The pooling of these different flows provides a qualitative solution ensuring environmental, economic and societal criteria. The thesis objectives aim at supporting Urban Distribution Centers (CDU) by combining distribution logistics with reverse logistics (upstream flows and downstream flows), thereby ensuring sustainable development in modern cities. The heterogeneity of the distribution logistics practices and the reverse logistics define the core of this thesis. Sharing these different flows provides a qualitative and sustainable solution as long as it meets the aforementioned criteria (environment, economy and society). Our approach is based on the Hub Location Problem to formulate the location problem of UDC while maximizing the profit and choosing the best available location. We proceed by identifying potential available locations, while guaranteeing returned flows management (collection, sorting, resale, etc.) and reducing pollution impact. Moreover, we simulate our optimised model with simulation tools using optimization algorithms. The effectiveness of these algorithms are validated based on generated outputs (set of data) inspired by real world scenarios. Reliability is a part of this work when dealing with UDC deployment. The unavailability of the system may be due to random failures, planned preventive maintenance actions, etc. Therefore, we present a solution supporting daily demands by integrating a collaborative approach between different sites. This approach is based on inter-CDU coordination policy with a strategy of subcontracting deliveries dealing with unavailability