Already some time ago I wrote about Systematic Review, a literature analysis approach that should lead to a well founded overview of a specific research field. Since I left out the history and some insights last time I wanted to extend on my last article here.
This article presents a comprehensive practice oriented framework for managing supply chain disruptions by Sunil Chopra and ManMohan S. Sodhi. The article has been published in the MIT Sloan Management Review in 2004. The framework covers everything from risk analysis to the selection of the risk mitigation strategy.
Today I would like to talk about a non-essential, but helpful part of supply chain management: Simulation.
Simulation can be used in a supply chain setting on many different levels. On a strategic level there are models to analyze scenarios for the optimal locations of one’s factory, on a tactical level inventory management and distribution policies are treated and on the operations side route-optimization is a generally used. Of course there are also non-simulation models for these tasks, but this article is not about the pros and cons of that.
Computer simulation has not been used on a professional scale until after World War II, and also then mostly for military uses like war games or simulations of atomic bomb explosions nowadays.
One of the first scientific papers on simulation has been published in the late 70s by Ören and Zeigler. They aggregate some fundamental knowledge about simulation and suggest an conceptual model for simulation, which I want to introduce today from the perspective of a supply chain
Today I just want to highlight a short article from “The Conversation” blog at the Harvard Business Review for you to read. The article, which can be found here, was written by Harold Sirkin, senior parter at the Boston Consulting Group.
What are the major obstacles to a successful merger? Today I’ll have a look at the 2003 article by Langabeer and Seifert. The authors argue that supply chain integration plays a major role before, during and after the merger.
Submitted by Daniel Dumke on Wed, 2010-12-22 09:50
Paper
How to Get Value Out of Your Returns
Year:
2010
I haven’t written anything about reverse logistics, yet. Mostly because it’s not a focus of in my own research. Nontheless, especially after the holidays returns will be on the mind of many supply chain professionals.
Reverse Logistics
The goal of reverse logistics is to efficiently and effectively handle returned products by establishing infrastructure and processes to accept incoming products and prepare them for resale, reuse, or recycling.
Decisions within a company are not made on pure rational grounds. Assuming that there is the will to make a rational decision, nevertheless limits in information gathering, computing capabilities and memory lead to irrational conclusions (bounded rationality).
So the goal must be to enhance rational decision making and for this end Kaufmann et al. (2009) developed a framework to combat irrationality.
After the last more general entries on managers perception of risk and measuring SC performance I wanted to make a detour back to the basics.
Simulation is one of the tools, which can be used for analyzing supply chain dynamics, optimization and to support corporate decision making.
