Structural Modeling and Integrative Analysis of Supply Chain Using Systems Approaches

Abstract

The purpose is to integrate supply chain analysis to obtain system-wide optimized solutions and to increase the increase the level of comprehensiveness of the supply chain modeling and to develop method of characterization of supply chain management on its structure. Elements constituting the supply chain management and the interactions between them have been identified through a literature survey and have been represented by graph based model. The matrix models and the variable permanent function models are developed for carrying out decomposition, characterization and the total analysis. The cause and effect diagrams are also prepared to analyze the effect of every factor on the supply chain performance. Structural patterns and combination sets of subsystems interacting in various ways have been recognized as capabilities of manufacturing system matrix has been proposed as a systematic technique for structural analysis of supply chain. Also the terms of permanent multinomial characterize the supply chain uniquely and are highly useful for computational storage, retrieval, communication as well as analysis of the structural information of supply chain. Cause and effect provides in detail all the causes which are responsible for a particular effect. Six sigma and quality function deployment ensures a quality to be built maintained at every step of the product manufacturing and warns also if any goes beyond the specified limits. Application of the proposed model in analyzing supply chain based on customer sensitivity and risk alleviation has been carried out. Through the use of proposed methodology, a manager will be able to make better informed decisions towards organizational efforts of improving the productivity and speed. For aiding several decisions, different”what-if”scenario may be generated with several structural modifications. This graph theory based methodology is a novel mechanism to seamlessly integrate manufacturing system wide optimization. This paper is an attempt to address the need for comprehensive and integrated analysis of the supply chain system. Cause and effect analysis provide the blueprints of the factors affecting the supply chain the most and there causes and severity to the system. Design for studying the influence of inter-organizational integration on business performance, and design of supply chain for x-abilities using graph theoretic approach and cause and effect analysis and concurrent engineering approach has been carried out. Design for a supply chain system requires multidisciplinary knowledge. A designer should consider product lifecycle issues as well as selection of supplier and inter-organizational integration and manufacturing strategies simultaneously at conceptual stage without missing any information. The proposed methodology concurrently considers all the x-abilities/design aspects along with interactions without missing any information and hence leads to a high quality product and high level of customer satisfaction and increased business performance. A methodology which combines concurrent design concepts, graph theory, matrix algebra and permanent multinomial is proposed. Abilities namely integration, quality, reliability, manufacturing, performance, interorganizational integration, ICT and the design parameters under each x-ability are identified. The design index derived is useful for researcher and designer in evaluating the conceptual design alternatives.