During the past few years, there have been tremendous attempts among various companies to implement the principles of supply chain management to increase their capabilities. Reduction in supply chain cost is an important element to support competitive advantage. However, to manage the cost of supply chain, managing target and order costs is essential. Reduction in both target cost and order cost is crucial to maintain reasonable supply chain cost, which directly influences the competitive advantage. Thus, the primary objective of this study is to support competitive advantage by the help of integration between target cost and order cost. To achieve this, quantitative research technique was adopted based on a survey technique and 300 questionnaires were distributed among the managerial employees of supply chain companies in Iraq. While analyzing the data through Smart PLS 3, it was revealed that any reduction in target cost and order cost could decrease the overall supply chain cost and this helps to sustain competitive advantage. Therefore, supply chain cost plays the mediating role to enhance competitive advantage through integration of the target cost and the order cost. Finally, this study is beneficial for supply chain companies to enhance competitive advantage through reduction in supply chain cost.

The primary objective of the present paper is to explore the link between supply logistic integration, competitive performance, lean process and supply performance. To achieve our research objectives, we develop a unique model, which conceptualizes the said relationship. Porter’s value chain and the resource based views are used as theatrical lenses of the current study using Amos software package based on a data set of 220 Iraqi manufacturing firms. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is employed to analyze the dataset. The findings of the study show that the there was a positive relationship between supply logistics and competitive performance (operational) and supply performance and lean processes were partially mediating this relationship. The study also shows the importance of managing both internal (production processes) and external processes (logistics and supply chain) of firms’ operations in an integrated manner in which supply chain management acts through key internal processes to impact competitive performance. This is the first study, which uncovers what happens “in between” the incoming materials and the end outputs delivered by firms into the market. This “in between black box” is important in improving our understanding of how inbound supply activities are translated into outbound competitive performance outcomes.

Successful flow-shop scheduling outlines a more rapid and efficient process of order fulfilment in warehouse activities. Indeed the way and the speed of order processing and, in particular, the operations concerning materials handling between the upper stocking area and a lower forward picking one must be optimized. The two activities, drops and pickings, have considerable impact on important performance parameters for Supply Chain wholesaler companies. In this paper, a new flow shop scheduling algorithm is formulated in order to process a greater number of orders by replacing the FIFO logic for the drops activities of a wholesaler company on a daily basis. The System Dynamics modelling and simulation have been used to simulate the actual scenario and the output solutions. Finally, a t-Student test validates the modelled algorithm, granting that it can be used for all wholesalers based on drop and picking activities.

Trading is the most sensitive sector of the economy, directly and indirectly responding to innovative challenges. High competition, political risks and planetary scales have made it susceptible to any globalization fluctuations. Effective management is seen as the most important opportunity to gain competitive advantage. This explains the increased interest in the system of indicators of management system evaluation in the business processes in the supply chains. The aim of this paper is to develop and substantiate analytical approaches to the study of the status of transnational trade economic relationships with the identification of significant impact indicators and vulnerability indicators. The globalization aspect of the existing trend of world trade (export-import) among differentiated groups of countries is justified, distinguishing the forecast component. A two-tier model of business process “reliability management” has been constructed, taking into account the results of linear regression models based on the profiles of Australia and New Zealand.

Manufacturing organizations are under the pressure to give quality products at least cost within the possible minimum delivery time, even during unpredictable economic conditions. Due to competition like improved customer service and cost reduction, organizations are looking for innovative ways for creating competitive advantage. One such way is the effective information sharing among all the members of supply chain. To understand information sharing, we have to know the benefits of information sharing within the supply chain. In this study, on the basis of the relevant available literature and the suggestions of an expert team composed of managerial and technical experts of the manufacturing organization and academicians, eleven information sharing benefits have been diagnosed. An ISM-based model has been formed to study the understanding of the information sharing benefits in adopting the right information sharing within a manufacturing industry. We propose the ISM model, and a MICMAC investigation is applied. Its practical significance is to make use of the decision makers’ knowledge to give a fundamental understanding of a complicated situation, followed by a course of actions for problem-solving.

Most of the supply chain models have been developed under symmetric information structure i.e. players have complete knowledge of each other’s policies. But in most of the cases, players do not have complete information about the other players i.e. some information regarding their businesses is hidden. This paper studies supply chain model of imperfect quality items under asymmetric information in which unit price taken by the buyer and unit marketing expenditure are influencing product’s demand. This information is hidden to seller. The seller delivers the supply to the buyer. Each delivered lot goes through an inspection process at the buyer’s side. In the inspection process, the items are divided into two categories. The first category is perfect quality items while the second category is of imperfect quality items. After the inspecting the lots, the perfect quality commodities are to be sold at selling price and the imperfect items are supposed to get sold at a discounted price. The interaction between two constituents of the supply chain is modeled by non-cooperative Seller Stackelberg game approach in which the role of leader is played by the seller while the role of follower is played by the buyer. In our proposed model, the seller does not have information related to market demand but the buyer does. Numerical examples and sensitivity analysis explain the significance of the theory.

Flow of information in supply chain is as prominent as material and financial flows and among these three aspects of a supply chain, information flow could be of great importance since it provides a basis for a steady flow of goods and finance as well. To help managers control the flow of information in an effective way, first, the parameters which affect the flow of information should be determined. Then, if the parameters can be controlled carefully, the information will be shared correctly and in a timely manner among supply chain members. This paper identifies the influencing parameters on proper flow of information in supply chain and provides a list of parameters based on the literature as well as the industrial and academic experts’ opinions. Afterwards, in order to define the degree of importance for each parameter from the experts’ perspective, fuzzy TOPSIS method is employed and the parameters are ranked based on three criteria, namely “measurability”, “being illustrative” and “parameters relevancy” to the issue of information flow. The research findings show that “Supply Chain Hardware Capabilities”, “Supply Chain Network Infrastructure”, “Information Software Capabilities”, “Information Sharing Timeliness”, “Information Recency” and “Organizational Rewards” received the highest priorities, while “Power of Internal and Inter-personal Communications”, “Users’ Trust” and “Users’ Tendency” were standing at the bottom of this ranking. The results of this research could be employed as an input for strategy development process for supply chain information management activities. Thus, the awareness of each parameter’s importance in proper flow of information, helps us make appropriate strategies to improve information management in the supply chain.

The objective of this paper is to develop an integrated production inventory model for reworkable items with exponential demand rate. This is a three-layer supply chain model with perspectives of supplier, producer and retailer. Supplier delivers raw material to the producer and finished goods to the retailer. We consider perfect and imperfect quality products, product reliability and reworking of imperfect items. After screening, defective items reworked at a cost just after the regular manufacturing schedule. At the beginning, the manufacturing system starts produce perfect items, after some time the manufacturing system can undergo into “out-of-control” situation from “in-control” situation, which is controlled by reverse logistic technique. This paper deliberates the effects of business strategies like optimum order size of raw material, exponential demand rate, production rate is demand dependent, idle times and reverse logistics for an integrated marketing system. Mathematica is used to develop the optimal solution of production rate and raw material order for maximum expected average profit. A numerical example and sensitivity analysis is illustrated to validate the model.

This article studies the manufacturer & apos; s pricing strategy in a supply chain with a single manufacturer and two competing retailers. The manufacturer, as a Stackelberg leader specifies wholesale prices to two retailers who face advertisement dependent demand. Based on this gaming structure, two mathematical models are developed - the cooperative advertising model where manufacturer shares a fraction of retailers & apos; advertising costs and the non-cooperative advertising model where manufacturer does not share any retailer & apos; s advertising expenses. The optimal strategies of the manufacturer and retailers are determined and a numerical example is taken to illustrate the theoretical results derived. We show that cooperative advertising policy is beneficial not only for the participating entities but also for the entire supply chain.

Multi-objective optimization is an optimization problem with some conflicting objectives to be attained, simultanously. This paper reviewed literature about multi-objective optimization problems for supply chain management. The review aimed to provide the lastest research views and recomendations for further studies. We discussed the lastest ten years publications about multi-objective optimization for supply chain management. The scope of this review was classified into five categories i.e. problem statements, multi-objective frameworks, mathematical formulation modeling, optimization techniques, and representation of supply chain. Multi-objective optimization approaches, both classical and metaheuristic approaches, were discussed, accordingly. In this review, we conducted conclusion and recomendations about likelihood research directions in future.