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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 fast change of globalization marketing, the shortened product life-cycle, and the uncertainty of marketing demand, enterprises have to become more agile, flexible in order to adapt to the fast change of the marketing. The SCM (Supply Chain Management) is the method to integrate the enterprise partnership of networks efficiently, the products will be produced and delivered with the right quantity to the right place at the right timing, it will help to reduce the cost of total supply chain and fulfill customer requirement with satisfaction. In past decades, the enterprises have introduced the balanced scorecard as the foundation of management system, and the method for alignment to business strategies. In this paper, through the combination of SCM practice and balanced scorecard by the Modified Delphi Method to develop the practical and effective performance indicators. The case study of this paper would take the performance indicators as the review on IDM (Integrated Device Manufacturers) company, in order to verify whether the SCM performance measurement of the company was balanced from each perspectives of the SCM balanced scorecard.

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.

Abstract When the enterprise competition is no longer the individual show that will play singles fights alone, but is the supply chain or the network team war. The partnership importance grows day by day. In transforming process from ¡§you, I¡¨ to ¡§us¡¨, the reciprocal benefit and mutual trust are playing tug-of-war with the self-interest and selfishness, that will cause the synthesis effect by the cooperation or perhaps will make loss because of noncooperation. This research origin is created by a new born venture case of an international merger & acquisition. As a result of product characteristic is combined by the electronic and textile industry, collected on the modern science and technology and traditional process in a body. It faced the defeat and crisis because of the careless and indiscreet on the partnership management. After redesigning the transnational organization and establishing the unique supply chain, actually the cooperation synthesis effect causes the new venture to develop turns defeat into victory. The market share and the profit rate large are getting better. It also integrates the resources to get fine solid market competitive power. However, after we get the factors of the goal, the benefit, the risk, the specialty and the share, the communication and the culture, promise and crisis, how to carry on the management to obtain the high quality partner cooperation? This research utilized the qualitative case study technique, reconstructed the experience to narrated three sections of stories, the dialectical analysis will inquire into the enterprise merger & acquisition, the transnational associates and the core supplier partnership management to get the conclusion and the principle as below. 1. The partnership of the enterprise merger & acquisition started from¡§the common interest¡¨, but is terminated easy by¡§the crisis¡¨. 2. The partnership of the transnational associates was established on¡§specialty¡¨and facilitated the cooperation with¡§communication¡¨. simultaneously we must paid attention to the difference of¡§the culture¡¨extremely, and established ¡§the share¡¨ interaction, but can avoid both sides did not cooperate or is perfunctory to develop partnership because of the inter-competition point of view. 3. The core supplier's partnership, must be established above the long-term strategy, both sides were working by the supplementary operation pattern,set up¡§the common goal¡¨as the cooperation principle, and do the management and the execution to solid ¡§promise¡¨, and must positively manage the conflict of ¡§the culture¡¨ difference.

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.

In current research literature, supply chain management (SCM) is a hot topic breaching the boundaries of many academic disciplines. SCM-related work can be found in the relevant literature for many disciplines. Supply chain management can be defined as effectively and efficiently managing the flows (information, financial and physical) in all stages of the supply chain to add value to end customers and gain profit for all firms in the chain. Supply chains involve multiple partners with the common goal to satisfy customer demand at a profit. While supply chains are not new, the way academics and practitioners view the need for and the means to manage these chains is relatively new. Very little literature can be found on designing supply chains from the ground up or what dimensions of supply chain management should be considered when designing a supply chain. Additionally, we have found that very few tools exist to help during the design phase of a supply chain. Moreover, very few tools exist that allow for comparing supply chain designs. We contribute to the current literature by determining which supply chain management dimensions should be considered during the design process. We employ text mining to create a supply chain design conceptual model and compare this model to existing supply chain models and reference frameworks. We continue to contribute to the current SCM literature by applying a creative application of concepts and results in the field of Stochastic Processes to build a custom simulator capable of comparing different supply chain designs and providing insights into how the different designs affect the supply chain’s total inventory cost. The simulator provides a mechanism for testing when real-time demand information is more beneficial than using first-come, first-serve (FCFS) order processing when the distributional form of lead-time demand is derived from the supply chain operating characteristics instead of using the assumption that lead-time demand distributions are known. We find that in many instances FCFS out-performs the use of real-time information in providing the lowest total inventory cost.

The changing role of manufacturing has ushered in an increasing number of initiatives aimed at improving operations. Specifically, various themes in operations have evolved over time, from forecasting and planning in the 1950s and 1960s through productivity and quality in the 1970s and 1980s respectively, to adaptability and responsiveness in the 1990s. Even though the emergence of agile paradigm had spurred a large stream of research by scholars, yet most of the research had been at the manufacturing level. Very few researches have gone beyond the manufacturing level to the larger supply chain level. And there are even fewer researches discussing about the combination of lean thinking and agile thinking in supply chain level. Based on the above statement, the purpose of this study is as follows: 1. To identify the definition and characteristics of ¡§Lean¡¨ and ¡§Agile¡¨. 2. To explore the relationship of the two kinds of thinking. 3. To prove the practicability of the findings. This research is organized as follows. Chapter 2 clearly describes the origin, definition and characteristics of lean thinking and agile thinking, and comparison of the two kind of thinking. Chapter 3 introduces the major combination factors of these- material decoupling point, information decoupling point, and postponement. Followed by introduction of three practical ways to combine the lean thinking and agile thinking.

With the development of globalized and liberalized economy, the work allocate becomes more precise and the product life cycle becomes shorter. For many firms, in a changing era and intense global competition environment, effective supply chain management can help organizations to achieve competitive advantage in facing future challenge. This study was according to the Tan¡¦s (2002) research on the supply chain management (SCM) with some measures modified from the viewpoint of actuality. 206 samples were collected. The objective of this study was to derive a set of SCM practices and to identify the major concerns in implementing a successful SCM program. This study also relates the practices and concerns to firm¡¦s performance by means of correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis. The major findings are: (1) identified 25 items of practices and 11 items of concerns that are critical for the successful SCM. (2) supply chain integrated, supply management, and strategy planning are significant correlation with performance. (3) different position has significant perception difference in performance; customer service quality has the most significant perception difference in each demographic variables.