Title: Quality in operational supply chain networks: an aerospace case study

Authors: Chaher Alzaman, A.A. Bulgak, Amar Ramudhin

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W., H549 Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8, Canada. ' Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. EV004.155, Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8, Canada. ' Department of Automated Manufacturing Engineering, ETS (Ecole de Technologie Superieure), 1100, rue Notre-Dame Ouest, Montreal, Quebec H3C 1K3, Canada

Abstract: Supply chain modelling is attracting the interest of many researchers and is a topic that has application in real-life management practices. In the aerospace industry, quality is an important factor and suppliers are chosen on the basis of quality as well as cost. By integrating cost of quality (COQ) into supply chain network design (SCND), managers could make decisions based on operational costs and quality non-conformance costs. This paper presents a case study for a leading company in the aerospace industry with COQ integrated into SCND. Further in this paper, we present a model that tailors to a real-life supply chain with COQ, binary variables for assignable cost representation of supply chain nodes and an n level bill of material integrated; the model resulting is a non-linear model and is challenging to solve. A simulated annealing-based solution procedure is then used to solve the overall model.

Keywords: operations research; supply chain networks; supply chain management; SCM; mathematical programming; aerospace industry; simulated annealing; cost of quality; COQ; supply chain design; nonlinear modelling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2010.036290

International Journal of Operational Research, 2010 Vol.9 No.4, pp.426 - 442

Published online: 01 Nov 2010 *

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