International Journal of Integrated Supply Management (4 papers in press)

Regular Issues

• Integrated multi-product, multi-level supply chain inventory model with joint replenishment and loss sharing  
  by Firudin Sultanov, Parviz Hasanov 
  Abstract: The size and frequency of orders placed by buyers affect the inventory replenishment policies of upstream supply chain members as well. Cooperation among supply chain parties plays a paramount role in improving the performance of inventory control and designing a cost-effective supply chain. This study develops an integrated inventory model for a three-tiered supply chain comprising of multiple suppliers delivering multiple products to a single manufacturer. Our paper makes the following contributions to the literature. First, a grouping method is proposed to handle cost and order calculation for multiple products. Second, we evaluate the total relevant cost for both the system and the supply chain members by employing a joint economic lot sizing model under various coordination scenarios. Finally, we propose a loss-sharing mechanism to compensate supply chain members who are worse off due to coordination. We use real data of an electronic device manufacturing company in extensive numerical studies and provide managerial implications.
  Keywords: supply chain management; joint replenishment; economic lot-sizing; loss sharing; integrated inventory; joint economic lot size.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJISM.2024.10059150
   
  
• Lead time sensitivity of product availability in supply chain resilience analysis  
  by Dmitry Ivanov 
  Abstract: The concept of lead time sensitivity is proposed in the setting of supply chain resilience. We define lead time sensitivity as the extent to which supply chain performance curve, (e.g., demand fulfilment) reacts to delays in lead time. If a lead time change for a product causes a substantial change in the product availability, (e.g., a shortage leading to a non-fulfilled demand), it is considered sensitive. Through simulations using anyLogistix, we find out that variations in lead time sensitivity directly reflect product availability variations under disruptions, and lead time sensitivity coefficients can be used as indicators of resilience. Our approach contributes to research on supply chain resilience and ripple effect by proposing the concept of lead time sensitivity and can be immediately used in practice for stress-testing the supply chains. We discuss the practical application of our approach for different sourcing strategies.
  Keywords: supply chain resilience; stress-test; performance; lead time sensitivity; simulation; anyLogistix.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJISM.2024.10060339
   
  
• An evaluation of factors affecting order picking performance in the fishbone warehouse  
  by Makusee Masae, Witchuda Boonreung, Panupong Vichitkunakorn, Christoph H. Glock 
  Abstract: Order picking is the process of retrieving items from storage locations to fulfil customer orders. It has been considered a key determinant of warehouse performance. To increase order picking efficiency, several planning problems need to be solved simultaneously. This research, therefore, solves the joint order picker routing and storage assignment problem in the fishbone warehouse. We evaluate the effects of four main factors, namely pick-list size, warehouse size, picker routing policy, and storage assignment policy, on the picker travel distance. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results indicate, at a level of significance of 0.05, that each factor including all two- and three-way interactions have a statistically relevant effect on the picker travel distance, except for the three-way interactions of warehouse size, pick-list size, and routing policy. Four-way interactions are not significant at the 0.05 level. Computational results show that the combination of the aisle-by-aisle routing heuristic and within-aisle storage outperforms other combinations of routing and storage assignment heuristics. Our finding support practitioners in identifying appropriate routing and storage assignment policies for efficiently operating fishbone warehouses.
  Keywords: picker routing; storage assignment; order picking; warehousing; fishbone warehouse.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJISM.2024.10062687
   
  
• Analysis of the performance of supply chain resilience strategies using a simulation approach (case study: natural stone industry)  
  by Maede Mirzaaliyan, Mojtaba Hajian Heidary, Maghsoud Amiri 
  Abstract: Building a resilient supply chain is necessary to manage supply chain disruptions and to continue delivery of products to customers. Hence, investigating supply chain resilience strategies is very important. In today competitive trade, supply chains are faced with different kinds of disruptions simultaneously. Disruptions may occur in the supplier facilities or in the production facilities. The previous studies, surveyed these disruptions separately, but in this paper, we proposed eight combined supply chain resilience strategies. In order to compare the performance of these strategies, discrete event simulation is utilised. The measures of comparing the strategies are: fill rate, total cost, available inventory, on-time deliveries, impact time, total backorders and average response time under short-term and long-term disruptions. Each combined resilience strategy includes one supply-side strategy for responding to supply-side disruptions and one production-side resilience strategy for responding to production-side disruptions. Supply-side resilience strategies are: backup supplier and extra inventory. Production-side resilience strategies are: redundancy, reserved capacity, reserved inventory and increasing work shifts. Results showed that the backup supplier-redundancy (B-R) and extra inventory-redundancy (E-R) are better strategies rather than others in the natural stone industry.
  Keywords: combined resilience strategy; supply chain; disruption; discrete event simulation; DES; natural stone industry.
  DOI: 10.1504/IJISM.2024.10063537