<div>As the manufacturing and healthcare systems becomes more complex, efficiently managing these systems requires cooperation and coordination between different parties. This dissertation examines the coordination issues in a supply chain problem and diagnostic decision making in the healthcare system. Below, we provide a brief description of the problem and results achieved. </div><div> </div><div>With supply chain becoming increasingly extended, the uncertainty in the upstream production process can greatly affect the material flow that aims toward meeting the uncertain demand at the downstream. In Chapter 2, we analyze a two-location system in which the upstream production facility experiences random capacities and the downstream store faces random demands. Instead of decomposing the profit function widely used to treat multi-echelon systems, our approach builds on the notions of stochastic functions, in particular, the stochastic linearity in midpoint and the directional concavity in midpoint, which establishes the concavity and submodularity of the profit functions. In general, it is optimal to follow a two-level state-dependent threshold policy such that an order is issued at a location if and only if the inventory position of that location is below the corresponding threshold. When the salvage values of the ending inventories are linear, the profit function becomes decomposable in the inventory positions at different locations and the optimal threshold policy reduces to the echelon base-stock policy. The effect of production and demand uncertainty on inventory levels depends critically on whether the production capacity is limited or ample in relation to the demand. Only when the capacity is about the demand, the upstream facility holds positive inventory; otherwise, all units produced are immediately shipped to the downstream. We further extend our analysis to situations with general stochastic production functions and with multiple locations.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>In Chapter 3, we examine the two-stage supply chain problem (described in Chapter 2) under the decentralized control. We consider two scenarios. In the first scenario, the retail store does not have any supply information including the inventory level at the manufacturing facility. We show that the upstream and downstream can be dynamically coordinated with proper transfer payment defined on local inventories and their own value function in the dynamic recursion. In the second scenario, the demand distribution is unknown to the manufacturing facility as well as the retail store does not know the supply information. We characterize the optimal transfer contracts under which coordination can be achieved, and propose an iterative algorithm to compute the optimal transfer contracts in the decentralized setting. The total profit of the decentralized system under our algorithm is guaranteed to converge to the centralized optimal channel profit for any demand and supply distribution functions. </div><div> </div><div>In Chapter 4, we provide a case study for the framework developed in [1]. The authors study the evaluation and integration of new medical research considering the operational impacts. As a case study, we first describe their two-station queueing control model using the MDP framework. We then present the structural properties of the MDP model. Since multiple classes of patients are considered in the MDP model, it becomes challenging to solve when the the number of patient classes increases. We describe an efficient heuristic algorithm developed by [1] to overcome the curse of dimensionality. We also test the numerical performance of their heuristic algorithm, and find that the largest optimality gap is less than 1.50% among all the experiments. </div><div> </div>

Logistics and Supply Chain Management are known in a professional public awareness more and more as activities which give a competitive advantage to companies which handle it well. The main objective of my diploma was to create a coprehensive guideline for logistics projects. This guideline shows the way how to manager logistics and supply chain management projects. In the theoretical part, I tried to cover the main areas of logistics and supply chain management in conjunction with the project management.The aim of my analysis was to apply the logistics guideline in a specific project for Jednota, spotřebitelské družstvo Ceske Budejovice, from the perspective of consultancy firm which was responsible for the solution of this project.

This paper is directed at discussing some of the management issues, problems and solutions of logistics in the context of offshored productive activities The introduction includes a discussion of the logistics topics and an introduction of the economic logic of offshoring. The main part analyses the logistics topics with regard to the internationally fragmented production. The topics of logistics include: Information flow and integration, transportation, inventory management, warehousing and materials management, packaging management, customer service, risk management, logistics strategies and supply chain design. For each of the discussed topics a company or industry example is given to illustrate the applications. The analysis is based on a review of the existing academic literature in each of these fields.

<p>While the energy field has been primarily dominated by fossil fuels such as coal and oil, there is evidence that renewable energy sources are starting to gain a stronger foothold in the energy market to accommodate growth (Debbage, 2008; Intelligent, 2008; Sterzinger, 2006). This has been the result of greater social concern, as well as tax and other government incentives (Intelligent, 2008; Debbage, 2008). Due to these trends, a growing market opportunity exists for cities and states to increase their renewable energy component production (Intelligent, 2008; Regional, 2013; Debbage, 2008; IPCC, 2014). The primary purpose of this study was to survey existing manufacturers in the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky to obtain information and identify manufacturers who: were currently in the renewable energy market, interested in entering the renewable energy market, or have no interest in entering the renewable energy market. Respondents also addressed potential barriers to the growth of the renewable energy field including workforce development, government policy, and investment capital. A total of 25 companies responded to the survey. Correlation analysis was used and determined that no significant correlation existed between surveyed companies who identified themselves as suppliers of renewable energy components and those companies who were identified as possible suppliers of renewable energy components within the REPP (Renewable Energy Policy Project) standards. This study builds on previous methodology used by Debbage (2008) for North Carolina. </p>

<div>This study explores the vertical relationships in the supply chain at three different levels, namely, firm-consumer interface, supplier-buyer interface, and firm-government interface. We provide a brief description of the results obtained for the specific problems considered in this study.</div><div><br></div><div><div>The firm-consumer interface is examined in Chapter 2. We explore firms’ selling strategy when dynamically competing for a common stream of consumers. In the situation of pure price competition, a commonly studied case, it is known that the </div><div>seller with a higher stock level can compete more effectively by forcing the seller with a lower stock level to sell out first and enjoy a monopoly power afterward. We show that when the sellers are open to price bargaining as a way of attracting buyers, the </div><div>competition equilibrium can exhibit different outcomes. When the overall stock held by the sellers is limited, there is a good chance that both sellers deplete the inventories before the end of the selling season. In this case, an incoming buyer would prefer a</div><div>high inventory seller, with whom he can bargain down the price. Interestingly, such a phenomenon only appears when the length of selling season is long enough. Thus, our study highlights the unique role of bargaining in consumer markets, as well as the importance of time horizon in characterizing equilibrium for dynamic games.</div></div><div><br></div><div>The supplier-buyer interface is studied in Chapter 3. In recent years, an increasing number of studies have applied the Nash bargaining (NB) solution to study channel relationships. However, this solution concept builds on an unrealistic axiom of independence of irrelevant alternatives. We demonstrate that, indeed, the NB solution can produce unreasonable outcomes in vertical negotiations. For example, a supplier negotiating with a monopoly retailer can end up making a higher profit than the one negotiating with a retailer facing potential competitions. To address this issue, we examine the Kalai-Smorodinsky (KS) solution as an alternative. Our analysis suggests that in competing supply chains, the KS solution appropriately captures the negotiation power shift induced by the decision ownership, the negotiation sequence, the vertical relationship, the competition intensity, the contract contingency, and the contract type. This is the first time the KS solution concept is applied to supply chain negotiations.<br></div><div><br></div><div>The firm-government interface is explored in Chapter 4. From the policymakers’ perspective, incentives firms actions toward increasing the product consumption for the needy group or increasing social welfare has a major influence in many supply chains. For example, agricultural products are subsidized by many governments. In this study, we analyze the design of government subsidy programs to induce socially improved firm decisions. We show that subsidizing on production input can lead to a more balanced distribution of market shares and firm profits than subsidizing on production output. Moreover, firms with efficient production technology prefer output subsidy, while those with inefficient production technology favor input subsidy<br></div>

Background: COVID-19 pandemic had a vast and significant impact on today’s societies, in terms of economic, societal, and even environmental aspects. Global supply chains had to adapt to this changing landscape rapidly. Both supply and demand witnessed repercussions. The effects of COVID-19 on supply chains have been evident, with lockdowns and inconsistent supply and demand causing issues for international trade. Indeed, many companies were constrained to stop supply and production and could not deliver their goods.   Purpose: This study aims to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on transportation operations in logistics companies, more precisely by using the case of DHL to emphasize our study. The purpose is to analyze the impacts that the crisis had on Logistics operations, by focusing on DHL and the way the company was impacted, understood and overcame the disruption. This study will take into consideration economic, social and environmental aspects.   Method: The research will be based on a case study and empirical evidence to provide a comprehensive understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on DHL’s supply chain operations and more precisely on logistics and transport. We used the Triple Bottom Line approach to measure the economic, social, and environmental performances of DHL. Further, the analysis used in this paper is an inductive thematic analysis, to emphasize the findings and provide a better accuracy to our results.   Results: The study aims to identify the effects that COVID-19 had on logistics operations, and it more particularly seeks to highlight the strategies used by logistics companies that could be useful for other companies that need to build more resilient and flexible supply chains in the face of future disruptions. The findings of this thesis will be valuable to businesses, supply chain managers, and policymakers seeking to understand the role of improving their supply chains. Thanks to the interviews that were conducted, the findings highlighted several strategies that have been implemented by companies, such as the acceleration in automation, efforts put towards employee conditions, and restructuring companies.

Today’s dynamic and increasingly competitive market had expanded complexities for global businesses pressuring companies to start leveraging on Big Data solutions in order to sustain the global competitions by becoming more data-driven in managing their supply chains.The main purpose of this study is twofold, 1) to explore the implications of applying analytics designing supply chain networks, 2) to investigate the link between operational and strategic management levels when making strategic decisions using Analytics.Qualitative methods have been applied for this study to gain a greater understanding of the Supply Chain Analytics phenomenon. An inductive approach in form of interviews, was performed in order to gain new empirical data. Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with professional individuals who hold managerial roles such as project managers, consultants, and end-users within the fields of Supply Chain Management and Big Data Analytics. The received empirical information was later analyzed using the thematic analysis method.The main findings in this thesis relatively contradicts with previous studies and existing literature in terms of connotations, definitions and applications of the three main types of Analytics. Furthermore, the findings present new approaches and perspectives that advanced analytics apply on both strategic and operational management levels that are shaping supply chain network designs.

<div>This study explores the perceptions of critical stakeholders as to the viability of a fully remote apprenticeship delivery system (FRADS), as well as its ability to serve as a functionally equivalent path of inclusion for access-limited populations. One of the first recorded pedagogical models, apprenticeship was also one of the first to be regulated. The effectiveness of the method of training a novice to enter the adult world of work through apprenticeship is undisputed, when it is conducted in a manner approximate to that from which it derived: a process that occurs over time, with continuous interaction between novice and expert. Despite millennia of practice, and a few emerging programs called Virtual Apprenticeships, the critical real-time skills-based mentoring component (on the job instruction/training, or OJI/OJT) of the modern apprenticeship is still only carried out fully in face-to-face programs. With the move to work-from-home (WFH) resulting from the global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, assessing the viability of a FRADS is timely. This qualitative exploratory study is a first step in the discussion. Bounded by the parameters of the U.S. Certified Apprenticeship Guidelines for Registered Apprenticeships and the constructs of viability and functional equivalence, participants of three critical stakeholder groups—policy makers, service managers, and front-line service workers—offer their pre-pandemic perceptions of the construct of a FRADS. Guided by the work of Jahoda, et al., (1957), Northrop (1949,1959), and Swedberg (2018), this qualitative exploratory methodology identified perceptual data points that are then compared against a framework of viability derived from IEG’s Service Delivery Evaluation Framework (Caceres, et al., 2016). And, because this represents a large systems change (LSC), I included aspects of Weiner’s (2009) Organizational Readiness for Change—valance and efficacy—as additional indicators of potential viability. Stakeholders examined key components of IEG’s evaluative criteria applied to a face-to-face apprenticeship as a functionally equivalent, technology-mediated apprenticeship delivery system. Additional stakeholder perceptions, mid-pandemic, along with a review of scholarly articles, media reports, and Department of Labor statistics concerning the impact of the WFH mandates foreground the gap a purposeful FRADS might fill. Analysis of some of the findings are represented in a preliminary process map. </div>

<div>Smart warehouses have become more popular in these days, with Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) being used for order pickups. They also allow efficient cost management with optimized storage and retrieval. Moreover, optimization of resources in these warehouses is essential to ensure maximum efficiency. In this thesis, we consider a three dimensional smart warehouse system equipped with heterogeneous AGVs (i.e., having different speeds). We propose scheduling and placement policies that jointly consider all the different design parameters including the scheduling decision probabilities and storage assignment locations. In order to provide differentiated service levels, we propose a prioritized probabilistic scheduling and placement policy to minimize a weighted sum of mean latency and latency tail probability (LTP). Towards this goal, we first derive closed-form expressions for the mean latency and LTP. Then, we formulate an optimization problem to jointly optimize a weighted sum of both the mean latency and LTP. The optimization problem is solved efficiently over the scheduling and decision variables. For a given placement of the products, scheduling decisions of customers’ orders are solved optimally and derived in closed forms. Evaluation results demonstrate a significant improvement of our policy (up to 32%) as compared to the state of other algorithms, such as the Least Work Left policy and Join the Shortest Queue policy, and other competitive baselines.</div>

<a>Global trends and factors, such as the increased level of globalization, climate change, resource scarcity, and awareness of social and environmental responsibilities, as well as fiercer competition and lower profit margins in all industries, force organizations to act to retain, regain, or sustain their competitive advantages for long-term survival. These trends and factors are historically known to bring about innovations that drive the evolution of industries. Sustainability is considered to be such an innovation to achieve fiscally sound, environmentally conscious, and socially progressive organizations and supply chains. Sustainable Development and Sustainability notions are among trending topics of 21st century. Elevated sustainability concerns of various stakeholders have been forcing members of all industries to evolve into their more environmentally and socially responsible versions. This study was initiated through a comprehensive literature review phase that reviewed 477 articles published in five major databases from 1990 to 2018. The purpose of this review was to assess the current state-of-the art on the subject of lean-driven sustainability. Based on descriptive and contextual analysis, synergies, divergences, and the extent of two-way permeability of lean and sustainability concepts from the perspective of intra- and inter-organizational operations were identified along with future research opportunities. Fundamental strengths and weaknesses of both concepts, existing strong synergies and untapped potential, along with their key contributors, the potential-use cases of lean tools to derive sustainable solutions are highlighted in this review. Next, based on the findings of systematic literature review, an innovative, holistic, versatile and scalable tool was developed to assess and benchmark sustainability performance of organizations and supply chains. The proposed framework was established upon trivet structure of Triple Bottom Line philosophy and fueled by Lean, Six-Sigma and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodologies for accurate and effective measurement of sustainability performance. Completeness of the framework was ensured through development of first-generation Key Performance Indicator (KPI) pool with 33 indicators, a unique work environment assessment mechanism for safety and environmental protection issues in terms of 11 risk categories and by construction of an ownership structure for ease of framework deployment. Proposed framework is expected to help with true sustainability performance improvement and benchmarking objectives at a range of business levels from facility to sectoral operations. Upon completion of the development phase, the Sustainability Benchmarking Tool (SBT) Framework was validated at the facility level within the context of value-added wood products manufacturing. Strengths and weaknesses of the system were identified within the scope of Bronze Frontier maturity level of the framework and tackled through a six-step analytical and quantitative reasoning methodology. The secondary objective of the validation phase was to document how value-added wood products industries can take advantage of natural properties of wood to become frontiers of sustainability innovation. In the end, True Sustainability performance of the target facility was improved by 2.37 base points, while economic and environmental performance was increased from being a system weakness to achieving an acceptable index score benchmark of 8.41 and system strength level of 9.31, respectively. Social sustainability score increased by 2.02 base points as a function of better gender bias ratio. The financial performance of the system improved from a 33% loss to 46.23% profit in the post-improvement state. Reductions in CO₂ emissions (55.16%), energy consumption (50.31%), solid waste generation (72.03%), non-value-added-time (89.30%) and cost performance (64.77%) were other significant achievements of the study. In the end, SBT Framework was successfully validated at the facility level and target facility evolved into its leaner, cleaner and more responsible version of itself. Furthermore, manufacturing industries of all sorts are key stakeholders, which rely on universities to satisfy the demand for competent workforce. Society also expects universities to educate youth and contribute to their self-development by achieving both, scientific and intellectual knowledge saturation. To expand the contribution of the study to the body of knowledge in the fields of Sustainability and Modern Management techniques, an undergraduate level course curriculum that integrates modern management techniques and sustainability concepts with wood products industry dynamics was developed. Students’ pre- and post-education awareness of, and familiarity with sustainability, potential consequences of ignored sustainability issues, modern management techniques, global trends, innovation waves, and industry evolution were compared through a seventeen-question survey. Results showed that course content was successful at increasing sustainability awareness at both overall and individual sustainability pillar levels, At the end, 100% of students were able to develop complete understanding of various modern management techniques and stated that they felt confident to apply learnt skills to real life issues within their profession upon graduation. Overall, this study empirically documented how synergies between Lean, Sustainability, Six-Sigma and Life Cycle Assessment concepts outweigh their divergences, demonstrated viability of SBT Framework and presented a proven example of modern management techniques powered transdisciplinary sustainability curriculum.</a>