Postponement as a tool of creating flexibility is not a new concept. It traces back in literature to the 1950’s but was mainly argued as a method useful for manufacturing. However, postponement could potentially be used in all different parts of an organization to delay certain activities, and thereby create flexibility, which is crucial in today’s volatile marketplace. Customers are requiring customized products, yet they are not willing to pay premium for processes involved. Also, competition is increasing, as retailers around the globe compete with each other due to internet and improved information systems. This study focuses on a retailer’s perspective in the supply chain, as previous studies mainly discuss manufacturers, and their different abilities of achieving flexibility. Supply chain management as a concept are discussed, which is described as an integrative approach to dealing with the planning and control of the materials flow from suppliers to end users. This will further be “extended” to demand chain management, where focus lies at customers’ demand and puts emphasis on the needs of the marketplace and identifies the roles and tasks to be designed in the supply chain to satisfy these needs, instead of starting with the supplier/manufacturer and working forward. This is closely connected to flexibility, and postponement as a tool to achieve this. Flexibility as such, is described as the ability to change, or adapt to customer demand. This study aims to explore the Swedish retailing business, and their use of postponement strategies. A quantitative study has been made to be able to create a general picture of their use of this tool, as well as their prerequisite for adopting this tool. This study shows that retailing in general do have adopted strategies for customizations except non-specialized stores where answers to a wide extent differed regarding their use of flexibility. However, these strategies mainly regard packaging, and/or basic customizations. Depending on the market certain retailers are active within; postponement is used in various extents. Expensive products, or customers requiring big quantities of products, are able to get these customized. Money is almost always the main concern in these adaptations. Some factors that have been studied, that were enablers of flexibility and postponement strategies, were not able to be analyzed as very low results were calculated. However, the main-factors: flexibility and postponement were able to be analyzed in detail, as well as discussions regarding the inconclusive data gathered.

Divisionen Underground Rock Excavation på Atlas Copco tillverkar kundanpassade gruvmaskiner i världsklass till kunder i mer än 170 länder. Från inköpsperspektivet är majoriteten av leverantörerna svenska men de dyraste komponenterna köps in från utlandet. Detta gör att stora krav ställs på både logistiken och produktionssystemet. De senaste årens ökande efterfrågan har lett till att materialförsörjningen har svårt att hantera de volymer som krävs och till följd uppstår störningar. En effektivisering och kapacitetsökning är nödvändig och därför kommer detta examensarbete att handla om kartläggning av material- och informationsflöde samt bristidentifiering av störningar i materialflödet. I tillägg till detta skall även företagets nyckeltal ses över och utvärderas i diskussionen utifrån vad teorin förespråkar. Examensarbetet har utförts på Atlas Copcos Underground Rock Excavation division i Örebro. Uppsatsen behandlar teori kopplat till de forskningsfrågor som presenteras i inledningen. Dessa frågor besvaras sedan utifrån teorin av författarna i diskussionskapitlet. I kapitlet nulägesbeskrivning presenteras en nulägesbild av företaget sett till material och informationsflöde samt dess prestanda. Detta för att läsaren ska få en bra bild över hur den dagliga verksamheten fungerar och hur de olika avdelningarna samverkar med varandra. Under problemidentifiering har två datakällor använts, statistik och kvalitativ data i form av workshops där deltagarna representerar hela materialflödet från ankomst till färdig produkt. All data har sammanställts i Paretodiagram för en tydlig visualisering och enkel prioritering för att sedan utredas vidare i form av en rotorsaksanalys. Rotorsaksanalysen ligger sedan till grund för de förbättringsförslag som presenteras i slutet av examensarbetet. Förslagen är baserade på prioriterade rotorsakerna och utvärderas sedan av utvalda deltagare för att ge en prioritering till företaget. Slutligen presenterar författarna rekommendationer som avgränsats från rapporten men som anses vara viktiga att jobba vidare med.

Physical distribution networks are integral parts of modern supply chains. When faced with a question of which node in a network is more important, cost immediately jumps to mind. However, in a world of uncertainty, there are other significant factors which should be considered when trying to answer such a question. The integrity of a network, as well as its robustness are factors that we consider, in making a judgement of importance. We develop algorithms to measure several properties of a class of networks. To accelerate the optimization of multiple related linear programs, we develop a modification of the revised simplex method, which exploits several key aspects to gain efficiency. We combine these algorithms and methods, to give rankings of the relative importance of nodes in networks. In order to better understand the usefulness of our method, we analyse the effect parameter changes have on the relative importance of nodes. We present a large, realistic network, whose nodes we rank in importance. We then vary the network's parameters and observe the impact of each change.

Risk management is one of the critical issues in supply chain management. Supply chain disruptions negatively impact on the performance and the business continuity of a firm, and the disruptions should be managed proactively if possible. One of the approaches for supply disruption management is to raise the level of inventory: supply disruptions can be reduced by simply increasing the safety stock level. However, inventory costs will be increased at the same time. Therefore it is assumed that having extra safety stock when and where needed is better than keeping a high safety stock all of the time. In this thesis, the concept of dynamic inventory management by supplier behavior monitoring is suggested and explored. Key to the concept is the assumption that out-of-control situations at a supplier can be causal triggers for stockouts, and that these triggers can be potentially predicted by using statistical monitoring tools. In the suggested approach, the statistical process control approach of using run tests is employed to monitor and evaluate the supplier behavior. The supplier’s yield rate is monitored as the performance measure, and the receiver’s safety stock level is increased when the supplier’s performance is detected to be potentially out-of-control (or about to reach an out-of-control situation). The simulation results under different yield rates indicate that stockouts can be reduced by monitoring the supplier behavior and dynamically adjusting inventory policy when production capacity is relatively loose and enough variability can be seen in the performance measure.

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We study the supply chain with two manufacturers producing competing products and selling them through a common retailer. The two manufacturers must decide on the wholesale price and the level of service they plan to provide to the consumer. Each firm are assumed to optimize only its own profit (uncoordinated). The consumer demand depends on two factors: (1) retail price, and (2) service level provided by the manufacturer. We extend the study on this basic model in three directions. First, we explore the role of bargaining power in supply chain strategic interactions. We derive and compare equilibrium solutions for the supply chain under three different scenarios (e.g., Manufacturer Stackelberg, Retailer Stackelberg, and Vertical Nash). Second, we extend the framework to study multi-period model. In this model, demand also depends on the past period retail prices and service levels, as well as current prices and service levels. Game-theoretic approaches and dynamic system and control theory are used as tools to model the problem. Finally, we examine a single period problem with stochastic demand. When demand is uncertain, the retailer faces a newsvendor-type problem. In our model, the newsvendor must manage two competing products against a price-dependent demand. We derive an expression for the newsvendor's optimal retail prices. Next, we provide an algorithm to search for the equilibrium wholesale price and service level, given that the manufacturers know the retailer's reaction function. Some numerical examples are provided.

The outsourcing of elements of supply chain processes is now an integral component of the operationalization of a firm s competitive business strategy. While the purported goal of outsourcing is usually to derive a competitive advantage in the marketplace, it is not clear whether the outsourcing decisions made by firms are always strategically aligned with their overall competitive strategy. To shed light on this important issue, this research study empirically examines the performance impact of the alignment (congruence) between a firm s competitive priorities (cost, flexibility, innovativeness, quality, and time) and the drivers of its outsourcing decisions. First, we develop and validate a survey instrument used to collect data for this study from manufacturing firms operating in the United States. Next, we use structural equation modeling to examine the impact of alignment between individual competitive priorities and related groups of outsourcing drivers. This analysis finds a significant positive relationship between outsourcing alignment and performance for a number of competitive priorities. Finally, we use cluster analysis to develop a taxonomy of manufacturing strategies which are tested to determine the relationship between the alignment of outsourcing decisions and performance. The taxonomic investigation identifies three unique clusters of firms based on their competitive priorities and then determines alignment between each cluster strategy and outsourcing to be significantly associated with better performance. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies in the literature that address the issue of strategic congruence between the outsourcing drivers and competitive priorities of a firm, and the impact of such congruence on firm performance.

Due to the environmental regulations and acts proposed and initiated by EU, enterprises have to take the impact on the environment into account. As such, they need to standardize suppliers¡¦ production process and management mechanism in their supply chain to lower the impact of their products and production process to the environment. As a result, how to establish suppliers¡¦ awareness of environmental concept and share the knowledge of green product production and related environmental management practices have become the key issue about green supply chain management. This study uses case study method, and seven enterprises which perform well in environmental protection are interviewed. After analysis, there are seven issues are found in this study: 1. Environmental acts in the local markets have positive influence on the implementation of green supply management by global enterprises. 2. The more customization and modularized the product of enterprise is, the more they enhance their green supply management, in order to respond to environmental acts. 3. The emphasis on environmental acts will assist the long-term and cooperative relationship between enterprises and their suppliers. 4. The emphasis on environmental acts will affect positively the collaborative innovation of green supply management. 5. The relationship between enterprises and their suppliers will influence the types of sharing knowledge in green supply management. 5-1. When enterprises and their suppliers have short-term and contractual relationship, they tend to share only explicit knowledge. 5-2. When enterprises and their suppliers have long-term and cooperative relationship, they tend to share explicit and implicit knowledge. 6. The more innovative the products of enterprises, which also have the characteristic of an assembly plant and a system manufacturer in the supply chain, the more likely they play a leading and transferring role in the knowledge sharing of green supply management. 7. The relationship between enterprises and their suppliers, as well as types of shared knowledge, will impact the construction of knowledge sharing and the installation of the controlling (auditing) mechanism of green supply management. 7-1. When enterprises and their suppliers have short-term, contractual relationship, they tend to establish only basic and explicit knowledge sharing mechanism. 7-2. When enterprises and their suppliers have long-term, cooperative relationship, they tend to use more resources and build a comprehensive knowledge sharing mechanism, but have a more restrict controlling (auditing) mechanism as well.

This dissertation is focused on investigating the integration of inventory and facility location decisions in different supply chain settings. Facility location and inventory decisions are interdependent due to the economies of scale that are inherent in transportation and replenishment costs. The facility location decisions have an impact on the transportation and replenishment costs which, in turn, affect the optimal inventory policy. On the other hand, the inventory policy dictates the frequency of shipments to replenish inventory which, in turn, affects the number of deliveries, and, hence, the transportation costs, between the facilities. Therefore, our main research objectives are to: • compare the optimal facility location, determined by minimizing total transportation costs, to the one determined by the models that also consider the timing and quantity of inventory replenishments and corresponding costs, • investigate the effect of facility location decisions on optimal inventory decisions, and • measure the impact of integrated decision-making on overall supply chain cost performance. Placing a special emphasis on the explicit modeling of transportation costs, we develop several novel models in mixed integer linear and nonlinear optimization programming. Based on how the underlying facility location problem is modeled, these models fall into two main groups: 1) continuous facility location problems, and 2) discrete facility location problems. For the stylistic models, the focus is on the development of analytical solutions. For the more general models, the focus is on the development of efficient algorithms. Our results demonstrate • the impact of explicit transportation costs on integrated decisions, • the impact of different transportation cost functions on integrated decisions in the context of continuous facility location problems of interest, • the value of integrated decision-making in different supply chain settings, and • the performance of solution methods that jointly optimize facility location and inventory decisions.