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The pulp and paper industry has significant sustainability implications and necessarily requires a careful consideration of direct and lower-tier suppliers for effective sustainable supply chain management. This paper utilized an extensive literature review and semi-structured interviews of experts in the Chinese pulp and paper industry to unearth the factors that highly influence multi-tier supply chain sustainability. A Technological-Organizational-Environmental (TOE) and Human-Organizational-Technological (HOT-fit) based theoretical framework was employed to classify the identified factors. Then, an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) based methodology was applied to determine the relative importance of the factors. A comparison analysis of the relative importance of the factors as determined by the experts in the focal companies, Tier-1 suppliers and Tier-2 suppliers of the Chinese pulp and paper industry is presented. The results show that institutional and technological factors are most critical to actualizing multi-tier supply chain sustainability. Thus, the study outcomes present relevant theoretical and practical implications for the managers and practitioners in the pulp and paper industry on how to facilitate multi-tier supply chain sustainability for increased competitiveness. Furthermore, this study provides guidelines for other industries as well and sets the stage for subsequent theorization and exploration of multi-tier supply chain sustainability for expected performance gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transforming Pulp and Paper (P&P) mills into Integrated Forest Biorefineries (IFBR) is a prominent solution to save Canadian P&P industry that has been facing decline of conventional paper demand. We propose a comprehensive decision model for the design of IFBR value chains by taking the uncertain demand of bioproducts into consideration. In particular, we propose a multi-stage stochastic programming model to obtain the optimal investment plan over a long-term planning horizon in the presence of various market trends. We also develop a Monte-Carlo simulation platform to validate the proposed model and to compare its performance with alternative decision models. The model is applied to a realistic case study inspired from P&P companies in Canada, where the value of incorporating the dynamic nature of uncertain demand has been estimated. Further, we elaborate on the value of considering flexibility in terms of adjusting the investment plan in response to changes in the demand. Our results indicate that the demand for bioproducts has a substantial impact on the profitability of the IFBR. We also demonstrated the significant value of explicitly incorporating the uncertainty in IFBR network design as well as adapting the investment plan to the changes in the demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of the International Journal of Production Research, focuses on the 'Carbon Neutrality' and 'SCM'. Nine articles have been selected for this special issue, and they cover various aspects to understand the manifestation of 'Carbon Neutrality' in supply chains, and to further illuminate how to achieve 'Carbon Neutrality' with supply chain innovation. This editorial provides a brief overview of the research domain, then introduces each article in the context of the state-of-the-art and highlights the contributions of selected papers to the field. Finally, the research perspectives are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integrated planning of several activities implicated in paper production can lead to remarkable gains in terms of raw materials and resource usage. However, activities such as order assignment, production sequencing and cutting planning are usually addressed separately while ignoring the interactions among these processes. But the quality of the solution resulting from the juxtaposition of the partial solutions is not guaranteed, and may have a significant impact in terms of inefficiency of global performance. This article considers production planning in a pulp and paper industry in order to meet a set of orders of diverse types of products, admitting the possibility of producing simultaneously in two or more paper machines with their own features. The developed approach, ASC-3Steps, considers not only cutting optimisation but also extends itself to the processes of assigning orders to paper machines and production sequencing at each machine. Minimisation of wasted paper is assumed to be the overall goal. A set of computational results based on real data is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For manufacturing companies, quality management is a key feature for increasing the competitiveness, productivity, profitability, and sustainability of their systems. Quality improvement (QI) methods aim to achieve high-quality parts without reducing performance. The Industry 4.0 framework brought technological developments that cannot be used by traditional QI methods, such as Six Sigma, Lean, Lean Six, the Theory of Constraints, and Total Quality Management, which are widely used in manufacturing companies. The need for higher manufacturing sustainability and market requirements has led to the search for alternative QI methods with superior performance to traditional QI methods such as Zero-Defect Manufacturing (ZDM). The current paper is a position paper with a goal to present the ZDM approach and providing a clear definition about ZDM to align everyone in one common understanding of ZDM. Many researchers and manufactures are skeptical about ZDM, therefore, numerous argumentative questions have been created and answered, to convince them why they should migrate from traditional QI methods to ZDM. The migration to ZDM has already started, to support this statement numerous facts from the literature have been presented. Finally, several directions were identified, demonstrating that there is still plenty of room for research in several domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines a two-stage two-dimensional cutting stock problem encountered by a paper mill company. The problem includes various machine-related and operational constraints based on real-world situations. Paper products are manufactured using two major cutting processes. Each cutting machine has a specific minimum and maximum width for input and output rolls and is limited by the maximum number of rolls it can cut at the same time. A mathematical model is presented to formally address the problem and an efficient multiple-choice knapsack-based heuristic algorithm is proposed to solve the problem. To demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed heuristic algorithm, computational experiments are conducted on test data-set generated from real-world data provided by a large paper mill company in the Republic of Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a green manufacturing-recycling network design approach for multi-echelon electronic assembly process under a complex product mix scenario which incorporates trade-off between economic cost and heavy metal pollutants. The approach is developed by formulating the green manufacturing-recycling network into a closed-loop logistics bi-objective optimisation model, in order to alleviate negative environmental influence by applying proper cleaner production technologies. The environmental influence is quantified by pollution equivalent numbers which are integrated in the model. Moreover, the volume of the heavy metal pollutants is optimised by selecting the cleaner production level and thus is jointly coordinated with the operation cost. To solve the bi-objective optimisation model, an enhanced global criterion approach is presented to improve the effectiveness on dealing with non-convexity of the Pareto-optimal frontier with computational efficient solutions. The proposed model is implemented on a case study to verify its flexibility to handle the closed-loop manufacturing-recycling network design of different sizes, as well as to obtain trade-off between operation cost and environmental influence by the heavy metal pollutants under various scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the background, concept and definition of the Industry Commons. It initiates a discussion on the positioning of the Industry Commons Ecosystem (ICE) with respect to current research directions in advanced manufacturing and production systems that shape advances in engineering and technology, novel business models and innovation breakthroughs. The potential value of data sharing across industrial domains is estimated at over $100 billion, particularly in view of optimising manufacturing processes. Data sharing across domains however faces a series of well-documented challenges associated with the lack of semantic interoperability and related standards, management of trust and sustainability. Solving bottlenecks in data sharing requires a systemic approach to data management, which can account for all aspects of data use, levels of application, attribution and dynamic exchanges. In this paper we propose a high-level ecosystem approach that integrates societal values with digital affordances of industry's cognitive-assisted processes, remote interfacing, hybrid applications and large-scale value networks. Early development of an Ontology Commons EcoSystem (OCES) is presented as the key enabling framework for Industry Commons interoperability and a series of enabling frameworks form the basis of future research directions in Trusted Data Sharing and Closed-Loop Lifecycle Management for greater sustainability. Abbreviations: AI – Artificial Intelligence; AIOTI – Alliance of Internet-of-Things Innovation; ALM – Asset Lifecycle Management; ALO – Application-Level Ontology; AP – Application Protocol; API – Application Programming Interface; B2B – Business-to-Business; B2C – Business-to-Customer; CDE – Cross-Domain Ecosystem; CDEI – Cross-Domain Ecosystem Interoperability; CL2M – Closed-Loop Lifecycle Management; CNO – Collaborative Networked Organisations; CPS – Cyber-Physical Systems; CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility; DLO – Domain-Level Ontology; DLT – Distributed Ledger Technology; EM – Enterprise Modelling; FAIR – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable; GUI – Graphical User Interface; ICE, Industry Commons Ecosystem; IOF – Industrial Ontology Foundry; IP – Intellectual Property; IPR – Intellectual Property Rights; ISN – Intertwined Supply Network; MIR – Music Information Retrieval; MLO – Middle-Level Ontology; MO – Meta-Ontology; OCES – Ontology Commons EcoSystem; PI – Physical Internet; PLM – Product Lifecycle Management; ROI – Return-on-Investment; SC – Supply Chain; SCM – Supply Chain Management; SOS – System-of-Systems; TDS – Trusted Data Sharing; TLO – Top-Level Ontology; TRO – Top Reference Ontology; TUI – Tangible User Interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maintenance activities are crucial for all manufacturing industries. To ensure availability and lifetime of production equipment, operations management and logistics support for maintenance need to evolve year after year. Besides, Centralised Maintenance Workshops are one of the most interesting approaches to reduce the cost and time required to repair faulty equipment. Generally known in the research community as 'repair shops', they aim to pool all the resources needed to repair defective equipment provided by different production sites. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of repair shops and to present opportunities for future research with a focus on the circular economy context. The most relevant papers have been rigorously selected and analyzed, providing interesting reference materials on the subject. Repair shops are a set of workstations, operators, and spare parts inventories required to restore a group of failed production equipment. After detecting the origin of the failures, there are two options: either repair the equipment by restoring its defective components or replace the defective components with others in good working order. In the case of non-repairable components/equipment, circular strategies allow identification of components/equipment that could be restored and used to supply the spare parts warehouse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The privatisation of the Iran newsprint industry has caused an increase in production and decrease in importation. Recognition of effective criteria in newsprint privatisation will accelerate privatisation of the industry. The goal of the research is expediting privatisation in the Iran newsprint industry through benefits, costs, opportunities and risk merits. We applied analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to solve the problem plus questionnaires and pair wise comparisons of the matrices by the experts have also been done in the research. The results show a decrease of budget deficiency, national debts (economic and financial), limiting rules, heavy taxes (economic and executive), encouragement possibility, absorption of foreign, internal investment (economic and financial) and limiting regulative costs (economic and financial) which are the most important sub criteria regarding benefits, costs, opportunities and risks merits, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

At present, the evaluation index for low carbon manufacturing was mainly focused on the relationship between carbon emission and economic benefits or removal volume. But there was rarely comprehensive evaluation index to evaluate the carbon utilisation level of processing. Based on this, this paper presented the carbon utilisation efficiency as the comprehensive evaluation index in low carbon manufacturing. The carbon utilisation efficiency was defined as the ratio of the carbon emission of materials removal to the whole carbon emission in manufacturing process. A carbon utilisation efficiency model was established in milling process, based on flow characteristics and removal mechanism of carbon emission during milling. Then a multi-objective optimisation model was established based on Particle Swarm Optimisation, and the minimum processing time and high carbon utilisation efficiency were set as the optimisation objectives. And the experiment was performed to confirm the undetermined constant in the optimisation model and verify the effectiveness of the optimisation model. The optimised milling parameters were verified to reduce the processing time and improve the carbon utilisation efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a systematic review and analysis of the game-theroy-based research in Green Supply Chains Management (GSCM). Based on a rigorous content analysis of 108 papers carefully selected from the literature, we present a detailed picture of the current state of this research and point to the promising future directions. Our analysis shows a rapid increase in the number of publications during the last three years, with an imbalance in the contribution of the publishing outlets, as nearly two third of the reviewed papers are published by only four journals. Results also show the dominance of deterministic static models and simple two-level SC structures. Developing stochastic models, considering the risk and the evolutionary nature that inherently characterise the business environment and investigating more complex multi-level SC structures are among the promising future research opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the complexity and the magnitude of optimisation models that appeared in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), the use of meta-heuristic algorithms as competent solution approaches is being increased in recent years. Although a massive number of publications exist around SSCM, no extant paper explicitly investigates the role of meta-heuristics in the sustainable (forward) supply chain. To fill this gap, a literature review is provided on meta-heuristic algorithms applied in SSCM by analyzing 160 rigorously selected papers published by the end of 2020. Our statistical analysis ascertains a considerable growth in the number of papers in recent years and reveals the contribution of 50 journals in forming the extant literature. The results also show that in the current literature the use of hybrid meta-heuristics is overtaking pure meta-heuristics, the genetic algorithm (GA) and the non-dominated sorting GA (NSGA-II) are the most-used single- and multi-objective algorithms, the aspects of sustainability are mostly addressed in connection with product distribution and routing of vehicles as pivotal operations in supply chain management, and last but not least, the economic-environmental category of sustainability has been further noticed by the scholars. Finally, a detailed discussion of findings and recommendations for future research are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few years, the fourth industrial revolution has attracted more and more attentions all around the world. In the current literature, there is still a lack of efforts to systematically review the state of the art of this new industrial revolution wave. The aim of this study is to address this gap by investigating the academic progresses in Industry 4.0. A systematic literature review was carried out to analyse the academic articles within the Industry 4.0 topic that were published online until the end of June 2016. In this paper, the obtained results from both the general data analysis of included papers (e.g. relevant journals, their subject areas and categories, conferences, keywords) and the specific data analysis corresponding to four research sub-questions are illustrated and discussed. These results not only summarise the current research activities (e.g. main research directions, applied standards, employed software and hardware), but also indicate existing deficiencies and potential research directions through proposing a research agenda. Findings of this review can be used as the basis for future research in Industry 4.0 and related topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses mechanisms for the allocation of emission permits (AEP) among a group of manufacturing companies aiming at controlling the total emission level of the group. Data envelopment analysis is adopted and extended to construct the AEP models. Proposed methods allocate the permits on the basis of the current input and output levels of individual firms, rather than historical records. Two variations of AEP mechanisms are considered. One situation is that one of the member firms dominates the responsibility of allocating emission permits on behalf of the group (individual AEP scenario). This dominating firm will maximise its own emission permit before allocating permits among other members in the group. The other situation is that a third-party central governing body is centrally responsible for coordinating the AEP among all group members (Central AEP scenario). Proposed mechanisms are applied to analyse efficiencies of a group of paper mills. The result shows that the mode of central AEP mechanism is a better choice than that of the individual AEP mechanism. Central AEP not only maximises the whole efficiency of the group but also improves efficiencies of individual firms. In contrast, with individual AEP, one firm gains efficiency at the loss of others. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With significant advancement in information technologies, Digital Twin has gained increasing attention as it offers an enabling tool to realise digitally-driven, cloud-enabled manufacturing. Given the nonlinear dynamics and uncertainty involved during the process of machinery degradation, proper design and adaptability of a Digital Twin model remain a challenge. This paper presents a Digital Twin reference model for rotating machinery fault diagnosis. The requirements for constructing the Digital Twin model are discussed, and a model updating scheme based on parameter sensitivity analysis is proposed to enhance the model adaptability. Experimental data are collected from a rotor system that emulates an unbalance fault and its progression. The data are then input to a Digital Twin model of the rotor system to investigate its ability of unbalance quantification and localisation for fault diagnosis. The results show that the constructed Digital Twin rotor model enables accurate diagnosis and adaptive degradation analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under a mass individualisation paradigm, the individualised design of manufacturing systems is difficult as it involves adaptive integrating both new and legacy machines for the formation of part families with uncertainty. A systematic virtual model mirroring the real world of manufacturing system is essential to bridge the gap between its design and operation. This paper presents a digital twin-driven methodology for rapid individualised designing of the automated flow-shop manufacturing system. The digital twin merges physics-based system modelling and distributed semi-physical simulation to provide engineering solution analysis capabilities and generates an authoritative digital design of the system at pre-production phase. An effective feedbacking of collected decision-support information from the intelligent multi-objective optimisation of the dynamic execution is presented to boost the applicability of the digital twin vision in the designing of AFMS. Finally, a bi-level iterative coordination mechanism is proposed to achieve optimal design performance for required functions of AFMS. A case study is conducted to prove the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Revenue sharing contracts (RSCs) have gained considerable popularity over the past two decades—particularly among prominent platform distributors such as the Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon— and have therefore attracted a great deal of research attention in the domain of supply-chain management. This study is the first to review the literature dealing with RSCs, a literature in which the number of articles has been growing consistently over the years. Specifically, we aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the state of the art of the research field, and to identify potentially fruitful areas for further exploration. To this end, we have carried out a content analysis of 148 carefully selected papers that address various aspects of RSCs in the domains of operations research and operations management. Our survey classifies and discusses the reviewed papers along numerous dimensions of interest, including the types of contract they incorporate and the research questions they address. We provide mathematical formulations of the two RSC structures that are most prevalent in research and in practice: (i) a wholesale-price contract that incorporates an added revenue-sharing mechanism; and (ii) a consignment contract with revenue sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic severely tested the resilience and robustness of supply chains for medically critical items and various common household goods. Severe and prolonged shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators in the United States have revealed vulnerabilities in the supply chains of such essential products in a time of need. Consequently, corporations have felt public pressure to rethink their supply chains. We begin this paper by examining the underlying causes of the prolonged shortages of critical products in the US as well as government’s and some companies’ initial response. Drawing from the lessons learned from the COVID pandemic, we propose a research agenda and opportunities to develop responsive supply chains to fight future pandemics. These opportunities revolve around measures that are intended to improve the supply chain responsiveness of essential products to combat future pandemics and other major public health emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue discusses the present and future of production in the Asia Pacific region, which drives the current world economy. Based on the region's massive working population, production in the Asia Pacific region has led to economic growth, and the GDP share of this region has increased from 20% to 30% in the past 40 years, almost equalling that of the other regions. Considering the above background, this special issue was planned for selecting and presenting interesting and meaningful research papers that deal with current and future production, not only just productions but also services, in the Asia Pacific region. [Extracted from the article]

An intertwined supply network (ISN) is an entirety of interconnected supply chains (SC) which, in their integrity secure the provision of society and markets with goods and services. The ISNs are open systems with structural dynamics since the firms may exhibit multiple behaviours by changing the buyer-supplier roles in interconnected or even competing SCs. From the positions of resilience, the ISNs as a whole provide services to society (e.g. food service, mobility service or communication service) which are required to ensure a long-term survival. The analysis of survivability at the level of ISN requires a consideration at a large scale as resilience of individual SCs. The recent example of coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak clearly shows the necessity of this new perspective. Our study introduces a new angle in SC resilience research when a resistance to extraordinary disruptions needs to be considered at the scale of viability. We elaborate on the integrity of the ISN and viability. The contribution of our position study lies in a conceptualisation of a novel decision-making environment of ISN viability. We illustrate the viability formation through a dynamic game-theoretic modelling of a biological system that resembles the ISN. We discuss some future research areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates how technical assistive devices for manual materials handling were analysed in the literature in a warehousing context. Works that discuss the economic and/or human factors impact of assistive devices on the warehousing system or the people employed therein were identified in a systematic literature review. Building on a conceptual framework proposed in this paper, our evaluation of the literature shows which types of assistive devices were analysed in the past, and from which perspective these devices were examined. Some works studied the devices exclusively from an operator well-being or an efficiency perspective, while several works analysed the devices' performance in terms of both dimensions. Several works contained in our literature sample highlighted trade-offs between both ergonomic and economic measures and, within the first category, between alternative ergonomic indicators, which shows that assistive devices have to be evaluated carefully in light of their intended application. The paper further identifies research gaps and emphasises the need to understand the interactions between human- and system-related variables that can be supported by assistive devices in designing effective manual materials handling systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered new research areas in supply chain resilience. One of these new areas is viability. Viability extends the resilience understanding from performance-based assessment of firm’s responses to disruptions towards survivability of both supply chains and associated ecosystems not only during some short-term disruptions but also under conditions of long-term crises. To explore the state-of-the-art knowledge on methods, models, capabilities, and technologies of supply chain viability, we edited this important IJPR special issue. To introduce the special issue, we review the existing literature on supply chain viability, conceptualise seven major pillars of supply chain viability theory (i.e. viable supply chain design, viability in process planning and control, ripple effect, intertwined and reconfigurable supply networks, ecosystems, digital supply chain, and Industry 5.0), and establish some associated future research directions. The findings of this editorial paper, as well as the articles in the special issue, can be used by researchers and practitioners alike to consolidate recent advances and practices of viability in supply chain networks and lay the solid foundation for further developments in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, many organisations have become much more conscious of sustainability with innovation in their manufacturing and supply chain management (Kusi-Sarpong, Gupta, and Sarkis [3]). In this paper, a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process evaluation approach is developed and simulation results the feasibility of the proposed supply chain configuration method. [Extracted from the article]

Reverse Logistics and Closed Loop Supply Chain Management (RL&CLSCM) are universally recognised as two environmentally friendly practices that could help in greening conventional supply chains. The popularity of these fields of research has led to the evolution of a vast number of publications in the literature. Various journals have so far contributed to the advancement of the field, with the International Journal of Production of Research (IJPR) being one of the most prominent contributed journals. To celebrate the 55th volume anniversary of IJPR, this review study aims to investigate the studies in the area of RL&CLSCM published in IJPR. The paper presents a thorough bibliometric and content analysis of 94 studies that were published in IJPR from 2000 until July 2017. The studies initially underwent a rigorous bibliometric and mapping analysis that helped to identify their characteristics. Subsequently, the contents of the sample papers were evaluated thoroughly. The content analysis led to classification of the papers into two main categories and sub-categories, and then to rigorous identification of the papers' attributes. The bibliometric and content analysis disclosed several research gaps that remain to be addressed in IJPR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the enabling of technologies and frameworks for new product development. This issue of "International Journal of Production Research" contains various papers from the "3rd International Conference on Manufacturing Research." Several of these papers discussed provisions and sharing of knowledge through digital frameworks and ontologies, supporting tools and evaluation systems, as well as design management and practice models for new product development.

The paper aims to describe a structured framework to implement, sustain and manage a quality-costing program in a process industry. After briefing about the advantages and disadvantages of various cost accounting approaches practiced by the industries, the authors described the need for attaching fuzziness to the notion of 'quality'. The proposed approach is discussed with the help of a case from paper industry. After obtaining expert elicitation, the imprecise, vague, and complex information related to quality cost items (under four key cost segments, i.e. prevention [P], appraisal [A], Internal failure [IF], and external failure [EF]) is synthesized using well-established principles of fuzzy set theory. To help the management in successful implementation of quality cost accounting system (QCAS) five alternatives for each cost category were considered. By obtaining the priority values with respect to various alternatives the implementation program was revived. The comparative analysis carried out after collecting the information under PAF cost segments showed a progressive and significant change in quality costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In paper 'Energy cost optimization in two machine Bernoulli serial lines under time-of-use pricing', Cheng, Yan and Gao analyse the structural characteristics of an energy cost optimisation problem, and transform it into optimal allocation of production rate among time periods of different electricity rates. Performance analysis and optimisation play a key role to improve productivity in manufacturing systems. The central theme of this special issue is on Analysis, Design, and Optimisation in Smart and Connected Production and Service Systems. [Extracted from the article]

With new market developments and e-commerce, there is an increased use of and interest in automation for order picking. This paper presents a systematic review and content analysis of the literature. It has the purpose of understanding the relevant performance aspects for automated, or partly automated, OPSs and identifying the studied links between design and performance, i.e. identifying which combinations of design aspects and performance aspects have been studied in previous research. For this purpose, 74 papers were selected and reviewed. From the review, it is clear that there has been an increased number of papers dealing with the performance of automated, or partly automated, OPSs in recent years. Moreover, there are differences between the different OPS types, but, overall, the performance categories of throughput, lead time, and operational efficiency have received the most attention in the literature. The paper identifies links between design and performance that have been studied, as well as links that appear to be under-researched. For academics, this paper synthesises the current knowledge on the performance of automation in OPSs and identifies opportunities for future research. For practitioners, the paper provides knowledge that can support the decision-making process of automation in OPSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Production planning and control (PPC) systems that employ aspects from both make-to-order (MTO) and make-to-stock (MTS) production control are known as hybrid MTS/MTO systems. While both MTO and MTS separately have been studied extensively, their combined use has received less attention. However, the literature on this topic is growing and this paper shows that the review performed in this paper is an important addition to the field. We categorise relevant literature according to a novel taxonomy and show that hybrid MTS/MTO production control can be used in different contexts. In addition, an overview of the modelling techniques and methods used in these papers is provided. Based on the reviewed literature, relevant research questions and directions for future research are identified. Finally, it is shown that hybrid MTS/MTO production control is prevalent in practice by discussing research with industrial applications. The paper contains an overview of research on hybrid MTS/MTO production control to be used as reference for researchers active in the field, and provides managerial insights and directions for future research on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Production and distribution are two key constituents of a supply chain. In view of the growing availability of data and advances in big data analytics techniques, there have been more and more applications of data analytics to deal with the problems in production and distribution management. With this in mind, we proposed a special issue on 'Big Data Analytics in Production and Distribution Management' to report the latest development in this field. In this editorial, we first introduce the background and examine the existing review works on the applications of data analytics to operations management. We then introduce the papers accepted in the issue, and discuss how different types of big data analytics techniques are applied to production and distribution management, including demand forecasting, production scheduling, distribution management, manufacturing management, and supply chain management. Finally, we conclude the paper with a discussion of future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In disrupted environments, the concept of digitalisation, viability, and sustainability have attracted considerable attention for the last decade. Digital, lean, and green capabilities have stimulated enormous advances in the development of industries. This paper discusses the current state of the art literature regarding sustainable and digital supply chain management performance. It reviews the relationship between digital technologies, lean, green, sustainability, and supply chain performance. A literature review approach, combined with a bibliometric analysis was adopted for robust field analysis. A set of 86 papers has been analysed and synthesised. The analysis of these papers has enabled the identification of the impact of Industry 4.0 technologies on the supply chain performance; the relationship of lean, green, and sustainability capabilities and digital supply chain; and the implications of the digital transformation of those capabilities. It presents a roadmap model integrating lean and green for viable, sustainable, and digital supply chain performance. The study is useful for academics and practitioners as it provides a roadmap framework and a solid background for integrating lean and green in the digital supply chain to achieve sustainable and viable performance as it outlines the necessity for incorporating the sustainability and viability performances in the digital supply chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In total, more than 200 papers were reviewed and classified into 4 categories which are: machine learning assisted VRP modelling, machine learning guided VRP decomposition strategies, machine learning guided perturbative VRP algorithms, and finally learning to construct VRP solutions. It provides an extensive review of vehicle routing (VRP) researches that use both analytical optimisation approaches and machine learning (ML) modules and mechanisms. This special issue largely originated from various discussions during several cross-domain, multi-disciplinary conferences and workshops, especially the 9th Multidisciplinary International Scheduling Conference: Theory and Applications (MISTA2019), which attracted scientists, researchers and practitioners from Computer Science, Operations Research as well as Business and Management. " A Two-Stage Stochastic Programming Model for Collaborative Asset Protection Routing Problem Enhanced with Machine Learning; A Learning Based Matheuristic Algorithm.". [Extracted from the article]

The paper at hand addresses the Economic Lot Scheduling Problem (ELSP), which is concerned with finding a feasible and cost-minimal production schedule for multiple items produced in lots on a single machine. The ELSP started to attract the attention of researchers in the 1950s, where the focus was primarily on the development of simple heuristics for solving the problem. Over the subsequent decades, this topic has frequently been addressed in the literature, with the subject of research being the development of new scheduling policies or solution procedures or extensions of the scope of the original model. To date, a large number of journal articles has been published on the ELSP and its model variants. To identify key research themes, publication patterns and opportunities for future research, the paper at hand applies a content analysis to a sample of 242 papers published on the Economic Lot Scheduling Problem. The results of the content analysis indicate that prior research on this topic had a strong focus on the development of solution methodologies, and that several aspects that are directly connected to lot sizing and scheduling have not attracted much attention in research on the ELSP yet, such as, for example, energy cost and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lean Thinking has successfully challenged mass production practices, by providing 'leaner' processes and supply chains, i.e. with less waste. Industry 4.0 has become an important strategic approach in the technological change of manufacturing and others. It aims to connect the physical and virtual worlds in industrial production. With such automation associated with Industry 4.0, questions arise about the synergy between this approach and the role of Lean in this ongoing industrial revolution. Therefore, a systematic literature review was carried out in order to identify the role of Lean in this scenario. The review was conducted from 2011 to 2019 timeframe and resulted in a total of 33 papers. This review demonstrated this as an emerging research area with most of the studies published in recent years (2017–2019). A deep analysis was undertaken to understand the Lean effect as a trigger for Industry 4.0. Main findings from a 15 out of the 33 papers revealed elements and facts found in sentences of such papers that act as this trigger. Additionally, a words count indicated that management, processes and people were the most cited words by the 15 papers, reinforcing the role of these key players in the companies' transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supply chain finance (SCF) is an innovative solution dedicated to optimising financial flows in supply chains, and has drawn tremendous attention from academia and industry. Considering the ever-evolving nature of SCF, the existing literature reviews in this field are limited due to a lack of integration of recent findings. Motivated by the limitation, we attempt to fill this gap by investigating the novel achievements that have been reported in the current literature. By conducting a systematic literature review, we selected 99 qualified papers published between 2010 and the first quarter of 2021, and then used descriptive analysis to identify the literature characteristics, followed by in-depth content analysis. We synthesised nine research dimensions in the selected SCF literature. By virtue of comprehensive analysis, we illustrated the embedded mechanisms among all participants in SCF practices, updated the SCF research framework, summarised the most dominant methods applied in current research, made two classifications of the financial service providers (FSPs) and SCF instruments, and provided five future research directions. The significance of this paper lies in providing both a novel theoretical foundation for academic researchers and a practical guide for industrial practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a review of the development and use of multi-agent modelling techniques and simulations in the context of manufacturing systems and supply chain management (SCM). The objective of the paper is twofold. First, it presents a comprehensive literature review of current multi-agent systems (MAS) research applications in the field of manufacturing systems and SCM. Second, it aims to identify and evaluate some key issues involved in using MAS methods to model and simulate manufacturing systems. A variety of different MAS applications are reviewed in three different classified research areas: production design and development, production planning and control, and SCM. In presenting a detailed taxonomy of MAS applications, the paper describes MAS application domains from five different perspectives. The review suggests the MAS approach represents a feasible framework for designing and analysing real-time manufacturing operations, since the approach is capable of modelling different levels of agent behaviour and dynamical interactions. The paper also highlights a number of key issues which have to be taken into account in attempting to design MAS-based research paradigms for future applications in manufacturing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we explore the implications of using recycled versus virgin materials for supply chain structure and supplier relationships, as well as the broader effects on operations strategy in an evolving sustainable environment. We focus on the corrugated cardboard industry, where vertical integration is common, and non-integrated firms are both customers and competitors of integrated firms. These multiple supplier/customer/competitor relationships provide a complex environment to observe changes in the supply chain with the addition of a reverse supply chain system using recycled materials. Based on the findings from an in-depth case study we posit several propositions related to the use of recycled materials, supply chain structure, supplier relationships, and operations strategy. In summary, because the benefits of the changes in the supply chain and supplier relationships accrue primarily to non-integrated firms, we expect the use of recycled material inputs to be dominated by non-integrated firms, and with decreasing capital costs over time, and the ratio of non-integrated to integrated firms using recycled materials will increase. Further, we expect smaller non-integrated firms to access the market for recycled materials differently from larger integrated firms, with the smaller firms more likely to employ non-price-based means for securing their supply of recycled material inputs. Finally, since non-integrated firms are likely to have different operations strategies than integrated firms, we expect the use of recycled materials to indirectly lead to greater use of non-cost-based operations strategies and facilitate the emergence of new operations strategies in the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An epidemic outbreak largely disrupts supply chains (SCs) worldwide through plummeting business confidence, especially when it becomes a pandemic; its unpredictable re-emergence and spreadability may lead to inappropriate decision-making, in turn causing severe economic shocks. In March 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak attained a pandemic level, and many millions of cases were confirmed globally. Many countries reported an increasing number of active cases and formulated long-term lockdown guidelines, which resulted in an unexpected disruption of SCs. A key challenge in this scenario is that the rising number of confirmed COVID-19 cases does not necessarily reflect the already infected or asymptomatic cases. It is thus critical to understand the impact of asymptomatic carriers on the SC, as they may be the key driver of the novel virus spread, disrupting long-term SCs. This paper generalised the susceptible-exposed-infected-recovered (S-E-I-R) approach to create a mathematical model for which the impact of a proposed asymptomatic situation on the SC is evaluated through the basic reproduction number (R0), considered the main driver of SC disruption and the equilibrium status of infection over time. This paper presents an action plan for reducing disruption in the SC based on the R0 of the model. Overall, the current study as validated through a case study suggests that the asymptomatic-situation-based model is more convenient for critically understanding as well as forecasting the outbreak’s impact on SCs. This study also highlights different perspectives of SCs for managing such types of pandemics using modelling approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research interest in topics related to production and supply chain planning and control in engineer-to-order (ETO) environments has grown significantly over the last three decades. One of the strategically important and challenging decision areas for planning and control in ETO environments is estimating and quoting feasible delivery dates and assessing the feasibility of customer-imposed delivery dates, collectively referred to as delivery date setting (DDS). While DDS has received substantial attention in literature, research supporting the process in ETO companies is fragmented – lacking clear guidelines for industrial practice and gaps to guide future research on the topic. To address these issues, this study systematically reviews literature supporting DDS in ETO environments, identifying tools and practices proposed in the extant literature, and proposing an agenda for future research. Findings suggest that most of the research has focused on developing planning and decision-support tools for tactical capacity planning to support reliable DDS, however, with a noticeable lack of alignment with industrial decision-support needs of ETO environments. Furthermore, despite previous research emphasising the importance of high levels of coordination and formalisation in the DDS process, there is a lack of research to guide practitioners in achieving high levels of coordination and formalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent development of optical measuring instruments has increased the use of surface topographic data for monitoring the quality of the engineered surface. Due to the complexities of modern industrial processes, however, surfaces of final products under the normal manufacturing process may have multiple modes, such that the surface consists of different topographic features from one in-control mode to another. In this case, existing monitoring approaches based on the single mode surface cannot characterise normal surfaces with multiple modes, and result in poor detection performance. In this article, a new approach for monitoring variations in multimode surface topography is presented. We propose a multimode surface prediction model, which characterises the generic behaviour of normal surfaces with multiple in-control modes. Moreover, we present a mode-specific surface monitoring approach that identifies topographic variations on the surfaces based on the similarity between probability density function (PDF) of residuals from observed and normal surfaces obtained through the prediction model. A novel probabilistic distance measure is introduced to effectively measure the similarity between a single residual PDF and a set of residual PDFs under the same mode. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through numerical simulation and real-life application of paper surface monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to continuous focus on sustainability and circular economy, product take-back programs are becoming increasingly relevant and attractive. Thus, closed-loop manufacturing systems have to be designed and developed for disassembly, reprocessing of materials, re-assembly, and remanufacturing in a cost-efficient way. Compared to traditional manufacturing, this involves a higher need for changeability due to higher uncertainty, e.g. in terms of timing and quantity that the system needs to handle, uncertainty in quality and materials of received items, and in particular significant variety in returned items, the system should be designed to process. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to investigate how reconfigurability, as the enabler of changeability at manufacturing system level, can be utilised to aid challenges in closed-loop manufacturing systems for product take-back. Initially, insights from an industrial case are presented regarding challenges in establishing and operating closed-loop manufacturing systems for product take-back programs. Secondly, different closed-loop manufacturing concepts applying the principles of reconfigurability are proposed and evaluated in terms of cost and robustness towards the inherent uncertainties in supplied end-of-use items. The results show significant potential of utilising a modular and platform-based approach towards meeting supply uncertainties through reconfiguration, which allows for a more efficient setup for product take-back. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an abstract of the paper A Study of the Variety of Paper Sizes in the U.K., by M. N. Pherwani and S. Eilon. Case studies in the consumption of stationery paper revealed a wide variety of products and a pricing policy which does not penalize customers for ordering non-standard or odd sizes. Cost analysis by use of break-even charts is not applicable, owing to the difficulty of allocating fixed costs to the various products. The amount of scrap caused by cutting paper rolls to predetermined stationery sizes is suggested as an alternative criterion, and application of linear programming to scheduling of paper sizes is demonstrated. An overall saving to the industry of about 2 percent of produced material is estimated to be the result if scientific scheduling is adopted.

Product return is a critical issue due to the uncertainty associated with the price, demand, and quality of the product. Thus, businesses must improve their information transparency to administer the product return behaviour of the end-user. Different studies so far have contributed to developing solutions to manage product return issues. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the literature on the product returns management domain to provide the scientific landscape map of existing studies for exploring the state of the current body of knowledge. A systematic literature review of existing literature, quantitative bibliometric analysis, and in-depth content analysis are conducted to accomplish the purpose. A total of 518 published articles from January 1986 to November 2020 are selected, reviewed, classified, and analysed in this study. We classified papers into six identified PRM categories, namely product recovery, forecasting product returns, consumer behaviour, return policy, uncertainty, and technology. Finally, we blended the state-of-the-art research and outlined the future research agenda concerning various themes, methodologies used, and aspects like lean, agility, and disruption in PRM based on research gap analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses a method for determining the optimal characteristics for a machine which fabricates two-dimensional products. The machine is a high-speed, high-cost, continuous processing facility. The end products of this continuous operation, called intermediate inventory, are stored and then used as input for a low-speed, low-cost, job-shop operation which finishes them to customers' dimensional specifications.
The study is based on a specific problem in the paper industry but problems of the same basic type are encountered in the manufacture of special products of steel, aluminium, plastics, textiles and so forth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of workforce differences on manufacturing systems have attracted the attention of a wide range of researchers in recent years. The differences between workers in terms of skills, age, gender and anthropometric measures have a large impact on production system performance. In this study, the workforce differences factors in production system design and modelling were investigated, with the aim of understanding how the differences between workers could influence a production system and how they had been considered in previous studies. The papers selected from the Scopus database were categorised based on whether how human factors are incorporated into manufacturing system optimisation and design approaches is discussed therein or is not. To find relevant papers, two sets of keywords were defined: (1) keywords relating to the differences between workers and (2) keywords relating to the kind of problem under study. Furthermore, the investigated papers helped highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the existing literature and derive a discussion on the possible future research steps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a systematic review of the Genetic Algorithm (GA)s proposed to solve planning and scheduling problems in Engineer-To-Order (ETO) contexts. Our review focuses on how the key characteristics of ETO projects affect both the problem studied and the GA algorithmic features. Typical ETO projects consist of one-of-a-kind products with complex structures and uncertain designs. A deep analysis of the papers published between 2000 and 2022 enables identifying 10 main characteristics of ETO projects, six activity types, 10 decision types, eight groups of constraints, and 10 optimisation objectives. Our study shows that none of the reported papers integrates all 10 ETO characteristics. The less studied ETO characteristics are incorporating design and engineering information in the problem definition and the design uncertainty. Our review also identifies 10 recurrent encoding formats and emphasises the most frequently used genetic operators. We observed that most planning and scheduling problems consider objectives and decisions related to product customisation or supply chain configuration yielding multi-objective problems. Most multi-objective GAs use a weighted sum or are based on NSGAII. Diversity maintenance methods, adaptive and parameter tunning mechanisms, or hybridisation with machine learning models are still not used in this context. A systematic review of genetic algorithms dedicated to industrial planning and scheduling Analysis on how the characteristics of ETO projects impact the design of genetic representation and operators Recommendation on approaches employed to reach high-quality solutions [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digitalization is constantly altering company paradigms and expanding cross-border supply chain prospects. Maritime transportation plays an increasingly essential part in the global supply network. Since maritime shipping services need to exchange a huge number of papers and paperwork across numerous companies, the usage of a unified platform for inter-organisational communication and information sharing is required. To develop an integrative, adaptive, and intelligent container booking system, a multi-agent architecture is designed in this article. The proposed architecture will aid the maritime industry in establishing real-time information interchange between autonomous agents, shippers, freight forwarders, and shipping lines. The process outlined in this paper reveals how the agents communicate with one another to resolve underlying inconsistencies. With the multi-agent framework, the article also presents a container slot optimisation problem considering market segmentation, different booking periods, heterogeneous containers and port congestion scenarios. Using this model the managers can find the booking limit for each type of containers and accordingly they can accept or reject the incoming booking requests. Furthermore, a simulated case study is also provided to validate the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rise of Internet of Things (IoT) technology, the seamless connection between the physical and digital worlds has been realized. This review paper aims to conduct a science mapping review of IoT applications in industrial management and to identify mainstream research topics, research gaps, and future research directions. Using VOSviewer as a visualization tool, 142 articles retrieved from the Scopus database were quantitatively discussed using scientometric analysis. Additionally, a follow-up qualitative discussion was focused on mainstream research topics, existing research gaps, and future research directions as the main research goals. The results revealed influential findings for the co-occurrence of keywords, journals, countries, authors, and documents analyses. Moreover, it was found that the existing research mainly focused on four main research topics including (1) application of IoT in manufacturing based on cyber-physical systems, (2) IoT-related technologies on logistics and supply chain management, (3) The impact of IoT on business models, and (4) Industrial IoT (IIoT) in the context of Industry 4.0. On this basis, the existing research gaps and future research directions are proposed. This review paper would help relevant practitioners and researchers to better understand the existing body of knowledge and lay the foundation for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under servitization (one paradigm of non-ownership-transfer) business model such as sharing, a manufacturer is responsible not only for product design but also for maintenance. This paper deals with joint decision of product quality and maintenance under servitization. A model minimising total cost is formulated to obtain the optimal product quality, maintenance effort and maintenance times. We find that the total cost first decreases then increases with product quality, maintenance effort and maintenance times. Moderate quality and maintenance effort level are the best for the manufacturer, because too high or too low quality and effort cause too high total cost. However, preventive maintenance should be implemented as many times as possible until the failure cost is reduced to zero as long as each maintenance can save cost. Moreover, in the optimal joint decision, the product quality, maintenance effort and maintenance times are negatively correlated in pairs. In addition, we explore the impact of unit failure cost, product lifecycle, production cost, maintenance cost, and failure intensity on the manufacturer's optimal decisions. In extensions, we further take penalty cost, exponential failure distribution, discount rate, and customer usage into account. This paper provides insight for the manufacturer to jointly consider product design and maintenance under servitization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]