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International audience; 5G technology enables end-to-end connectivity in real time at a highly granular level along with the associated end-to-end visibility through the Internet-of-Everything. While some potential benefits of 5G for digital supply chain and operations management have been declared, literature is still silent about theoretical underpinning and structured conceptualisation of application areas, underlying implementation challenges, and the role of 5G in future transformations of value creation. This paper aims to offer some directions of how to close this research gap. We organise the discussion around five major capabilities of the digital supply chain and smart operations which can be enhanced by 5G, i.e. intelligence, visibility, transparency, dynamic networking, and connectivity. We delineate possible future research topics related to 5G in different areas of Industry 4.0-driven, digital supply chain and operations management which can be useful for researchers and practitioners alike when seeking to understand the impact of 5G on both short-term and long-term time scales. Our analysis encompasses both operational processes (e.g. transformations of manufacturing and warehouse operations by end-to-end connectivity of devices) and strategic perspectives (e.g. transformations of business models and supply network structures through end-to-end real-time visibility and connectivity of industry, public infrastructure, and consumers). Finally, cost-benefits trade-offs are discussed.

Due to various factors of flexibility introduced into manufacturing systems, researchers have gradually shifted their focus to the integrated process planning and scheduling (IPPS) problem to impro...

In a selective assembly system, mismatched products can pass inspections due to the flexibility of product quality grades. However, they will be sold at discounted prices leading to a revenue decli...

The digital supply chains enabled by Big Data Analytics (BDA) capabilities have become a business significance to develop a competitive and sustainable supply chain. The implementation of BDA for sustainable supply chains introduces various organisational challenges for the manufacturing firms demanding complementary capabilities. This study presents an investigation of the linkages between BDA capabilities, circular economy (CE) practices, and sustainable supply chain (SSC) flexibility on the SSC performance. Based on a survey of 320 manufacturing organisations, the study presents very interesting results. It is revealed that the BDA does not have a direct effect on sustainable performance. The CE practices and SSC flexibility are significant mediating variables between the BDA capabilities and SSC performance. The BDA is found to drive the implementation of CE practices. Further, CE practices are found to develop SSC flexibility with the BDA complementing these flexibilities.

Product design and supply chain design are two key determinants of company competitiveness. However, they follow different design objectives and thus require a systematic trade-off. Although methodologies for product design and supply chain design are well established within each domain in research and industry, an integrated methodology that bridges both design domains is still lacking. Based on a recently introduced concurrent product and supply chain design process, we contribute to this underdeveloped research area with a generic approach towards exploring design tradespace. We introduce a detailed operational process for the concurrent design of product and supply chain architectures. To apply this generic process to the specific trade-off between the product-related objective of modularity and the supply-chain-related objective of sourcing flexibility, we also develop new methods for key steps of the process. We demonstrate the application of the process and the developed methods using an industrial case study of a new product (electric-vehicle battery module). The case shows that our methodology was able to structure the concurrent design process. It hereby ensured an efficient trade-off and led to high-quality designs.

This paper examines the relative impact on supply chain responsiveness of adding flexibility and redundancy. We seek to investigate the effectiveness of flexibility and redundancy in terms of minim...

Reconfigurable machine tool (RMT) is the core facility of the reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS), which can provide customised flexibility for RMS through reconfiguration. The reconfiguratio...

In today���s market, sales promotional schemes have spun out to be essential for promoting outfits. Nonetheless, due to the sudden ascent in sales, the subsequent demand uncertainty calls for the high flexibility in supply chains. The present work examines the barriers to flexibility in the Indian automobile supply chains under such an environment from a sustainability viewpoint, an indispensable element of the present-day supply chains. In view of the literature and the descriptive survey led, 20 barriers have been identified. Through the analytical investigation directed, a numerical index value for the sustainable supply chain flexibility barriers is developed via graph-theoretical and matrix approach. Findings, along with the sensitivity analysis, conducted establish that the barriers at the supply chain���s procurement function have the highest impact in inhibiting the sustainable supply chain flexibility, thus significantly affecting the firm performance during sales promotional schemes. The obtained barrier index can be utilised for assessing the performance of all the companies across the industry. The model proposed offers valuable discernments to practicing officials in focusing on the significant barriers. This study augments the existing literature by linking the supply chain flexibility, Sustainability, and Sales promotions and thus clubs the three independent research streams.

Despite the importance of supply chain learning for competitiveness, little is known about how to enable such learning. This study empirically investigates the impact of information sharing on diff...

In the OCP phosphate supply chain, source ores (SOs) are extracted according to a tactical extraction programme, constrained by geological conditions that constantly limit and modify the variety of available SOs. Then SOs are blended to get merchantable ores (MOs) respecting composition constraints and ordered by internal (phosphoric acid plant) or external (export) customers. The blending process is performed in a dry blending plant, possibly followed by treatments in a washing plant which modifies the SOs weights and compositions. The choice of alternative routings and blends depends on orders book and SOs availability in the dry blending area or present on mine. To improve the performance in meeting a rolling 4-weeks orders book, a quadratic model was created and implemented. It optimises jointly: (i) for each order, the routing and the SOs quantities used in the dry blending plant; (ii) the SOs quantities transferred from the mine; (iii) security stocks to face some unforeseen change in the MO book order, and the slight instability of the SO chemical composition that triggers a SO multiplication to be contained. The performance of the linearised model has led the relevant OCP site to develop and use an extended version of this model.

Enhancing the proactive strategic capabilities to withstand the most unfavourable circumstances is always appreciated as a long-term policy rather than incident-based responses. The present researc...

In recent years, the interest in seru production system (SPS) has increased to enhance the flexibility of production systems. Because the worker resource in an SPS is critical for adapting to chang...

The circular economy (CE) is an evolving economic and sustainable development model. In this new environment, companies face a more dynamic, uncertain, and complex market environment. These challen...

Smart Manufacturing (SM) a revolutionary paradigm that aims to improve production systems’ performance in terms of quality, time, cost, and flexibility, as well as human and machine decision-making...

The traditional flexible job shop scheduling problem (FJSP) considers machine flexibility but not worker flexibility. Given the influence and potential of human factors in improving production effi...

An important goal of Production Planning and Control systems is to achieve short and predictable flow times, especially where high flexibility in meeting customer demand is required, while maintain...

Road freight transportation sustainability is gaining increasing importance due to an ever-increasing freight movement, globalisation and operational flexibility. The transport managers across the ...

The performance of a company is largely affected by that of its providers as they are a direct factor that determines product prices, flexibility and quality. It is therefore important to measure their performance. Several aspects need to be measured but traditional multi-criteria decision methods (MCDM) do not benchmark but only rank providers. Multi-criteria decision sorting methods are well indicated to benchmark activities into classes. In this paper, we present a modification of the AHPSort sorting method, where cost and benefit criteria are kept separate for a better and easier comparison. A case study in the aerospace industry will illustrate the efficacy of the new Cost-Benefit AHPSort method. The results will help managers to make specific decisions concerning their current offshore providers. They will also give valuable feedback for providers in order to improve their performance. Additionally, the findings enable a definition of benchmarking that will support future evaluations.

Given the recent dynamics of the automotive industry in the UK, the ability for a firm to be flexible has often taken priority over other performance indicators. Using the notion of distinct busine...

This paper analyses the impact of manufacturing technologies (MTs) and workers' qualifications on labour productivity and flexibility, taking into account the product-process (P-P) strategy adopted by the company. This allows for a discussion about the well-known P-P matrix initially proposed by Hayes and Wheelwright (1994) in order to evaluate options of production systems. The empirical analysis is performed by means of a panel of data of 13 years for the Spanish manufacturing industry, which includes a total of 7741 observations. The results indicate a complementary effect between technology and skills to overcome the trade-offs of production systems. This work was financially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness research projects ECO2017-86305-C4-4-R and AGL2015-65897-C03-1_R.

Due to the increasing uncertainty and diversity in supply chains (SCs), companies are aiming to develop their SC flexibility, which we define as the capability of a company, both internally and ext...

Increasing product proliferation, customisation, competition and customer expectations, as well as supply side disruptions, pose significant challenges to firm operations. Such challenges require i...

The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate an operational flexibility construct that can serve as a general theory in operations management in the context of the hospital industry. The ef...

After a disaster happens, emergency response operations are critical to save humans’ lives and properties. The limited resources and time requirements call for coordinated supply chain operations. This paper studies supply chain operations for rescue kits in disaster reliefs, motivated by a real-world application. The objective is to minimise the total tardiness and peak tardiness of product delivery over the multi-period planning horizon. One major challenge is the lack of reliable prediction of customer demand in disasters. In order to cope with demand uncertainty while maintaining the tractability of the optimisation model, we decompose the demand into two components: a relatively stable base demand predicted by historical data and unpredictable demand surges. For the base demand, an optimisation model is developed to optimise the production and distribution operations, as well as the inventory replenishment policy for manufacturers and distribution centres, so as to minimise the total tardiness. For t...

This paper presents a new weighted fuzzy multi-objective model to integrated supplier selection, order quantity allocation and customer order scheduling problem to prepare a responsive and order-oriented supply chain in a make-to-order manufacturing system. Total cost and quality of purchased parts as well as the reliability of on-time delivery of customer orders are regarded as the objectives of the model. On the other hand, flexible suppliers can contribute to the responsiveness and flexibility of entire supply chain in the face of uncertain customer orders. Therefore, a mathematical measure is developed for evaluating the volume flexibility of suppliers and is considered as the other objective of the model. Furthermore, by considering the effect of interdependencies between the selection criteria and to handle inconsistent and uncertain judgments, a fuzzy analytic network process method is used to identify top suppliers and consider as the last objective. In order to optimise these objectives, the deci...

A distinct feature of process industries such as food, chemical and consumer packaged goods is the blending of intermediates into finished goods. In the context of such manufacturing systems the levels of different inputs that can be blended to process a final good define the range of flexibility. Likewise, the cost for using (blending) different inputs defines the mobility element of flexibility. In this paper, we investigate capacity investment and the value of flexibility in the presence of such product blending constraints. We are motivated by recent case studies of food manufacturers, in particular, those manufacturers that seek to increase flexibility via blending of intermediates. We analyse stochastic programs under demand uncertainty of such manufacturing systems. We provide analytical insights into trade-offs when range and mobility are interdependent. Our analytical work gives structural insights into subtle complementarity and substitution effects between dedicated and shared resources in the ...

Due to the low volume high variety strategies of manufacturing companies, manual assembly operators have a much larger cognitive load than before. The expertise of the operators must be kept up to date at any time. Since the high investment and low flexibility of a real setting to perform a manual assembly training, a virtual replica is introduced in many cases. The aim of this paper is to study the effect of an elementary virtual training for manual assembly tasks. In literature, different studies on the topic can be found; nevertheless, a comparison between the different studies is not possible due to diverse evaluation methods and descriptions. A benchmark for a uniform evaluation of virtual training systems is presented and applied to this experiment. Two groups were submitted to a number of manual assembly tasks. The test group got a virtual training period in advance. A significant learning transfer during that training period was observed. When the first assembly of the reference group is counted a...

Below-knee prosthesis is much needed in Thailand and the world over because it serves as a close substitute for a missing body part (e.g. a device to aid people with paraplegia). Production of these components by gas-induced semi-solid process is relatively new, and investors need to be assured of success before committing themselves into a venture. Most cost models, such as the activity-based model, have flexibility limitations, and hence more input-sensitive – the process-based cost model (PBCM) – is alternatively employed in analysing more simple work process, appropriate production volume and unit cost, and was utilised in this research. An array of production volumes (5000–100,000 sets) and a number of daily work shifts (1–3) were investigated. From detailed breakdowns, analysis results suggested an optimal annual production volume in the range of 10,000–40,000 sets employing any shifts per day. Below 10,000, unit cost escalates very sharply, and beyond 40,000 it decreases only marginally. Production...

Recent trends in the commercial aviation industry have resulted in rapidly increasing complexity and decentralisation in service parts logistics systems. As a consequence, MRO service providers tend to adopt more flexible strategies, such as service parts sourcing and demand fulfilment for customers with different service-level requirements. The MRO service providers often enter into cooperative agreements with other service providers to pool inventories, enabling them to increase their flexibility in delivering services to multiple airlines with different contractual terms. Although using cooperative strategies, such as emergency resupply, is useful to increase flexibility, the inherent complexity of optimal mechanism is a critical issue that needs to be further investigated. To this aim, we consider a repairable service parts inventory system with multi-customer classes and develop an optimal emergency resupply policy. Following this, to overcome the intractability issue of finding the optimal policy, an efficient approximation method is proposed. Numerical results indicate that the proposed approximation method is highly accurate, and leads to a significant costs reduction. This paper sheds light on the effectiveness of emergency resupply policy that improves MRO service providers’ flexibility and enables them to ensure responsive service parts inventory.

This paper develops a multi-commodity multi-period optimisation model to analyse market demand disruption risk in agribusiness supply chains. It investigates the role of allocation flexibility and the effectiveness of multiple risk management strategies for achieving allocation flexibility. A robust optimisation formulation is used to obtain risk-averse solutions for an objective combining expected profit and risk. Numerical results are presented for a real-life case study of Zespri’s kiwifruit supply chain. The results show that allocation flexibility is effective for mitigating market demand disruption risk. Three proposed risk management strategies, namely diversified demand market, backup demand market and flexible rerouting, improve both expected profit and risk measures. While diversified demand market and backup demand market strategies are equally important for all decision-makers, flexible rerouting is especially significant for less risk-averse decision-makers.

Third-party logistics (3PL) is a fast growing business. Many large organisations are using 3PL services to reduce operating costs, simplify business processes, and enhance operations and supply chain flexibility. In this paper, we study location-inventory decisions jointly in a closed-loop system with 3PL. First, a model formulation is proposed to develop mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) models for the location-inventory problem under study. Then, a novel heuristics based on differential evolution and the genetic algorithm is designed to solve the MINLP models efficiently. Last, numerical study is presented to illustrate and validate the solution approach.

This paper develops a dynamic warehouse planning model incorporating demand forecast and contract flexibility, and addresses how demand forecast and contract flexibility affect warehouse size planning. In this model, a manager announces a nominal size of the warehouse space to rent before the planning horizon begins (strategic decision), and determines the ordering quantity and actual warehouse size during the horizon (operational decision). In particular, the manager can adjust the actual warehouse size within a range according to dynamically updating demand forecast during the horizon, which reflects the contract flexibility. We start with the characterisation of the operational decision. For any given nominal size, we show the monotonicity of optimal inventory replenishment and warehousing decisions w.r.t. demand forecast and contract flexibility. However, this monotonicity does not necessarily hold for the strategic choice of the nominal size. Finally, a case study is presented to investigate the inte...

Family-based dispatching heuristics aim for improving job flow times by reducing time spent on set-ups. They realise set-up efficiencies by batching similar types of jobs. By their intuitiveness and the simplicity of their decision logic, they may contribute to an easy to implement and viable strategy in many practical settings. Similar to common dispatching rules most existing family-based dispatching heuristics are myopic, i.e. their decision scope is restricted to a single manufacturing stage. Hence, they neglect opportunities for improving shop performance by coordinating batching decisions with other manufacturing stages. Case examples from industry underpin the need for exploring these opportunities. We do so by studying a simple two-stage flow shop, entailing a serial and a batch stage. To facilitate shop coordination we propose extensions to existing family-based dispatching heuristics. Extended heuristics seek to further increase set-up efficiencies by allowing for upstream job re-sequencing, and pro-active set-ups, i.e. set-ups that may be initiated prior to the arrival of a job. Outcomes of an extensive simulation study indicate significant performance gains for extended heuristics vs. existing heuristics. Performance gains are largest for moderate and high set-up to run-time ratios.

An important issue in the manufacturing and supply chain literature concerns the optimisation of inventory decisions. Single-product inventory problems are widely studied and have been optimally solved under a variety of assumptions and settings. However, as systems become more complex, inventory decisions become more complicated for which the methods/approaches for optimising single inventory systems are incapable of deriving optimal policies. Manufacturing process flexibility provides an example of such a complex application area. Decisions involving the interrelated product inventories and production facilities form a highly multidimensional, non-decomposable system for which optimal policies cannot be readily obtained. We propose the methodology of approximate dynamic programming (ADP) to overcome the computational challenge imposed by this multidimensionality. Incorporating a sample backup simulation approach, ADP develops policies by utilising only a fraction of the computations required by classical dynamic programming. However, there are few studies in the literature that optimise production decisions in a stochastic, multi-factory, multi-product inventory system of this complexity. This paper aims to explore the feasibility and relevancy of ADP algorithms for this application. We present the results from numerical experiments that establish the strong performance of policies developed via temporal difference ADP algorithms in comparison to optimal policies and to policies derived from a deterministic approximation of the problem.

Recently, the estimation and monitoring of manufacturing key performance indicators (KPIs) have drawn significant attention. In this article, a KPI estimation and monitoring method using a multi-output Gaussian process (MGP) is proposed. The Gaussian process (GP) is an effective non-parametric flexible tool for data-driven statistical modelling for various systems. The unique features of the proposed method is that the MGP enjoys the high flexibility and desirable analytical properties of the GP while also capturing the correlation between different KPIs, thus providing better estimation accuracy and error quantification. The advantageous features of the proposed method are demonstrated through a numerical study as well as a case study with real world data in the estimation and monitoring of throughput for a multiclass production operation.

We consider a multi-product multi-market newsvendor problem where the decision-maker could select some markets to serve. The considered problem involves the integration of procurement and market selection decisions. The products are procured from an external supplier. We assume that the realised demand for each product should be satisfied. In the case of shortages, the firm procures items at a higher cost. The paper considers the case where the selling prices, market entry costs, and product demand distributions are market dependent. Specifically, we discuss three cases of the Multi-Product Selective Newsvendor Problem: flexible market entry case, full market entry case and partial market entry case. The mathematical models of the above cases result in binary nonlinear programmes. We develop solution algorithms for solving the resulting combinatorial problems. Some managerial insights are provided.

In a low-profit environment, numerous firms no longer use traditional hiring practices and are forced to use a temporary workforce; these practices result in a more flexible workforce. Although outsourcing provides several benefits, it has a high level of risk. Therefore, implementing an enterprise risk management programme is crucial for using temporary labour. This study investigated the condition under which the multiperiod contract of a temporary work agency prohibits labour shortages. This investigation was performed to improve the effectiveness of dispatch contract designs. This study incorporated the concepts of labour demand forecasting and risk sharing and proposes two types of quantity flexibility contracts, period quantity adjustment and total quantity adjustment, to develop an optimal manpower dispatch contract model. An optimal manpower dispatch contract model must coordinate the interests of a temporary work agency and user firms to increase profits for both firms and must be flexible enough...

Clustering is a family of classification techniques, often preceding further analysis or application in a number of fields like data analysis, strategy selection, supplier selection, etc. Data based neural techniques are gaining popularity in clustering applications due to flexibility and adaptability. Kohonen’s Self Organizing Map (SOM) is often used when the objects to be clustered have many attributes. In both supervised and un-supervised modes, Kohonen’s map exhibit good capability to extract a classification which assigns highest weight to the most important attribute. In this paper, we have applied SOM for classification of firms based on their sources of information for new suppliers/customers. Additional data regarding the outsourcing success of the firms’ is added to see if there is an association between a particular set of information sources and the probability of firms’ success to outsource to partner firms. Using data from World Bank BEEPS survey of German industries, we could produce three ...

In this paper, we identify different characteristics of seasonal demands and analyse their impact on manufacturing systems. In particular, we consider a single-stage production facility that has flexibility to adjust its production rates or inventory target levels. Using Markov decision process formulation, we analyse a model that minimises the total cost under infinite horizon discounted and average cost criteria. Through extensive numerical studies, we reveal several insights related to the individual and joint impact of seasonal demand characteristics that are of practical interests to manufacturers.

The present work is an attempt to contribute to the conceptual systematisation of the manufacturing flexibility types by synthesising the vast literature available after a systematic review. We classified the papers in two perspectives (hierarchical and strategic), and engaged in a systematic process of standardisation of the definitions and names of various flexibility types leading to a better understanding of them. This process allowed us to clearly show: (a) the existence of a broader consensus in the field than expected; (b) that problems are limited to concrete aspects related to the level of analysis or the scope of certain flexibility types; (c) the possibility of a theoretical integration between the two perspectives which would permit a standardisation of the names and definitions for the flexibility types which make up the manufacturing flexibility construct.

The modern supply chain network has geographically spread out across the globe. The performance of a customer service level is highly dependent on the effectiveness of its supply chain planning. To improve the service provided to downstream customers, planners must not only decide order allocation among multiple distribution centres but also consider reducing the order-to-delivery time. Directed shipment delivery from manufacturing sites provides the flexibility of direct shipment; however, it also makes order allocation more difficult. In this study, a flexible supply network planning (FSNP) model based on integer linear programming is developed for the memory module industry. In addition to multisite order allocation planning, the FSNP model explicitly considers directed shipment from manufacturing sites for reducing the order-to-delivery time. Furthermore, the combination of characteristics of the memory module industry, such as multilevel and multisite production environments, multiple-to-multiple pro...

In view of the increasing business opportunities with changing customer attitudes and stricter legislations, the handling of returns has become a daunting challenge. The need for decision models for evaluating return performance has been observed in the academia and the corporate world. To improve return system performance, integrated flexible reverse enterprise systems have attracted attention from researchers as well as practitioners. This paper addresses these critical issues and proposes a novel integrated and Flexible recovery system decision model. The proposed model aims to facilitate enterprises in assessing their product recovery system capability, and in improving overall performance. The proposed model is a natural extension of several well-grounded policies for conventional reverse supply chains and can be verified on a simulation platform.

In this study, we examine the optimal allocation of demand across a set of suppliers in a supply chain that is exposed to supply risk and environmental risk. A two-stage mixed-integer programming model is used to develop a flexible sourcing strategy under disruptions. Our model integrates supplier selection and demand allocation with transportation channel selection and provides contingency plans to mitigate the negative impacts of disruptions and minimise total network costs. Finally, a numerical example is presented to illustrate the model and provide insights. The findings suggest that developing contingency plans using flexibility in suppliers’ production capacity is an effective strategy for firms to mitigate the severity of disruptions. We also show that flexibility and reliability of the suppliers and regions play a significant role in determining contingency plans for during disruption. Findings generally show that highly flexible suppliers receive less allocation, and their flexible capacity is r...

Reporting forecast data is a common method used to improve the functioning of supply chains (SCs) and to reduce supply shortages. Customers tend to report the maximum possible demand as a forecast if restrictions are missing. Such a forecast is useless for suppliers. Hence, special contracts are needed to enhance the value of forecast data and therefore the cooperation between SC partners. In this paper, such a contract is presented. It encourages the customer to report a more realistic forecast. Deviations from the reported forecast are punished in different ways: If the customer reported too much and wants to release less than what was reported, he has to pay a penalty. On the other hand, the customer has the flexibility to purchase more than reported to meet the demand on his outlet but at the cost of an additional fee. This paper analyses how different contract parameters affect the performance of the SC, in particular when the bargaining power of customer and supplier is not equally distributed. Resu...

In this article, we examine how purchasing’s strategic participation influences supply management activities via the choice of appropriate operational and strategic criteria. Specifically, the study focuses on supplier selection and monitoring ongoing supplier performance evaluation based on operational and strategic criteria. A combination of choosing appropriate supplier selection criteria and monitoring supplier performance ensures that the benefits of purchasing’s participation in strategic planning translate into better purchasing performance of cost, quality, delivery, flexibility and innovation. We test the hypotheses using survey data collected from manufacturing companies in the US by means of a path model. Our results provide support for the tenet that purchasing’s participation in strategic planning influences purchasing performance directly as well as through the mediating effects of supplier selection criteria and supplier performance evaluation. We discuss the theoretical and managerial impl...

Extant literature suggests that product modularity positively and directly impacts the timeliness and frequency of new products as well as manufacturing performance, particularly flexibility. Little is known about the nature of these relationships, however, since few empirical studies have been done. Important questions remain unanswered including whether the effect of modularity on launch speed is direct or indirect, and what role other constructs might play. This study explores these issues by examining the effects of product modularity on launch speed within a holistic framework that considers the roles of product platforms and manufacturing flexibility. Drawing upon dynamic capabilities theory in the resource-based view, the model depicts product modularity as antecedent to product platforms, product platforms as antecedent to manufacturing flexibility and manufacturing flexibility as antecedent to launch speed. The model is strongly supported by an analysis of 93 manufacturers. Results reveal a posit...

The relationship between manufacturing flexibility and environmental uncertainty has been widely studied; however, research involving manufacturing flexibility and associated infrastructural antecedents is sparse. In this paper, using the real options perspective, we develop a research model to explicate management support’s influence on an organisation’s manufacturing flexibility. We use a second-order, multi-dimensional construct and survey data collected from US manufacturers to test our hypotheses. The study provides evidence to suggest that management support through teamwork, information systems effectiveness, and integrated supply chain effectiveness enhances an organisation’s manufacturing flexibility.

Supply contracts have been widely utilised by practitioners to mitigate supply chain risks and disruptions while maintaining flexibility and stability. It is, thus, not surprising that buyers’ economically rational decisions towards supply contracts have been well studied. Missing in the literature, however, is examination of potential values and risks of supply contracts from supplier’s perspective. Motivated by this literature vacancy, this paper, using a real options approach, investigates a supplier’s acceptance decision towards a supply contract with variable cost and supply demand uncertainties. Through analytical and numerical examinations, conditions under which it is economically viable for the supplier to accept the supply contract are derived. This study also uncovers the impacts of variable cost and supply demand uncertainties as well as contract duration on the supplier’s acceptance decision. Also, there exists a range of contract duration beyond which the supplier should reject the supply co...

In today’s dynamic business environment, building flexibility into product innovation has become increasingly important. Applying an absorptive capacity lens, this paper develops and empirically tests an integrative model linking external knowledge acquisition (EKA) with supply chain and product innovation flexibilities, and examines the moderating effect of organisational awareness (OA) (a form of individual knowledge base) on these constructs. It is one of a select few papers that explores the effect of both internal capability and external knowledge on innovation flexibility, and discusses both supply chain and human resource development implications. Results indicate that supply chain network flexibility and information spanning flexibility play a mediating role between EKA and product innovation flexibility (PIF), illustrating the importance of flexible supply chain networks and information distribution structures in facilitating the transformation of external knowledge into innovation. The study pro...

Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) is a widely employed model for SC performance assessment, regardless its generic nature. This article presents a SCOR-based model for performance measurement in supply chains (SC) and apply it in the context of Brazilian footwear industry. The model has two dimensions: SCOR processes (source, make, deliver and return) and performance standards adapted from original SCOR (cost, quality, delivery and flexibility). This structure delivers a 4 × 4 matrix, with each component assessed under analytical hierarchy process. Using focus groups, SC’s experts weighted each component of the matrix regarding their relevance. Thereafter, SC’s managers indicated respective results. The SC’s overall performance was obtained by adding the performance of all indicators. The model application embraced one focal footwear manufacturer, four suppliers, three distribution channels and a return channel, with 85 indicators assessed. The achieved performance for the whole SC is 75.29%.The ma...