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Recent years have witnessed companies abandon traditional open-loop supply chain structures in favour of closed-loop variants, in a bid to mitigate environmental impacts and exploit economic opportunities. Central to the closed-loop paradigm is remanufacturing: the restoration of used products to useful life. While this operational model has huge potential to extend product life-cycles, the collection and recovery processes diminish the effectiveness of existing control mechanisms for open-loop systems. We systematically review the literature in the field of closed-loop supply chain dynamics, which explores the time-varying interactions of material and information flows in the different elements of remanufacturing supply chains. We supplement this with further reviews of what we call the three 'pillars' of such systems, i.e. forecasting, collection, and inventory and production control. This provides us with an interdisciplinary lens to investigate how a 'boomerang' effect (i.e. sale, consumption, and return processes) impacts on the behaviour of the closed-loop system and to understand how it can be controlled. To facilitate this, we contrast closed-loop supply chain dynamics research to the well-developed research in each pillar; explore how different disciplines have accommodated the supply, process, demand, and control uncertainties; and provide insights for future research on the dynamics of remanufacturing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The systems approach is an exemplar of design science research (DSR), whereby specific designs yield generic knowledge. DSR is increasingly being adopted in logistics and operations management research, but many point to neglect of the human aspects of solutions developed. The authors argue that it is possible to look back at the history of the systems movement to seek precedent for 'dealing' with the social components, providing a methodologically pluralistic 'research design' framework. Thereby, systems approaches are foundational to providing a design-based 'science' to progressing the logistics and supply chain management field, dealing with contemporary topics such as resilience. Design/methodology/approach: The authors undertake a discursive assessment of relevant streams of engineering, social science and systems research, with a conceptual development of how the latter influences supply chain design approaches. Findings: Building on a phenomenological framework, the authors create a generic design science research design (DSRD) that enables researchers to choose and integrate the right tools and methods to address simple, complicated and complex problems, dealing with technological, process and social problems. Research limitations/implications: The DSRD provides a framework by which to exploit a range of methodological stances to problem solving, including quantitative modelling perspectives and 'soft' systems social science approaches. Four substantive gaps are identified for future research – establishing the root cause domain of the problem, how to deal with the hierarchy of systems within systems, establishing appropriate criteria for the solution design and how best to deal with chaotic and disordered systems. Originality/value: The authors argue that the systems approaches offer methodological pluralism by which a generic DSRD may be applied to enhance supply chain design. The authors show the relevance of the DSRD to supply chain design problems including in reducing supply chain dynamics and enhance resilience. In doing so, the study points towards an integrated perspective and future research agenda for designing resilient supply chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrastructure projects exemplify engineer-to-order supply chains, where there is a high degree of complexity and uncertainty associated with developing a 'unique' product. While there is much advocacy of translating operational excellence techniques from high volume manufacturing sectors, we argue that such an approach is based on a mis-presumption of order and structure at all systems levels. We suggest an alternative 'travel of an idea' from the knowledge management discipline, a phenomenological framework describing contexts in terms of ordered and un-ordered, which directs us towards the need for diverse management approaches if we are to minimise the risk of project underperformance and failure. We contemplate the value of the framework and reflect on the contribution it can make to the construction industry specifically and to engineer-to-order production systems more generally; we provide a basis to bring a healthy challenge when 'travelling ideas' and expose how unthinking choices can be expected to fail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the dynamics of a hybrid manufacturing/remanufacturing system (HMRS) by exploring the impact of the average return yield and uncertainty in returns volume. Through modelling and simulation techniques, we measure the long-term variability of end-product inventories and orders issued, given its negative impact on the operational performance of supply chains, as well as the average net stock and the average backlog, in order to consider the key trade-off between service level and holding requirements. In this regard, prior studies have observed that returns may positively impact the dynamic behaviour of the HMRS. We demonstrate that this occurs as long as the intrinsic uncertainty in the volume of returns is low —increasing the return yield results in decreased fluctuations in production, which enhances the operation of the closed-loop system. Interestingly, we observe a U-shaped relationship between the inventory performance and the return yield. However, the dynamics of the supply chain may significantly suffer from returns volume uncertainty through the damaging Bullwhip phenomenon. Under this scenario, the relationship between the average return yield and the intrinsic returns volume variability determines the operational performance of closed-loop supply chains in comparison with traditional (open-loop) systems. In this sense, this research adds to the still very limited literature on the dynamic behaviour of closed-loop supply chains, whose importance is enormously growing in the current production model evolving from a linear to a circular architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An empirical study in the ship-building sector has been undertaken to understand the problems associated with the coordination of engineer-to-order (ETO) supply chains and to reveal insights into opportunities for improvements based on the application of soft systems methodology. A number of alternatives to improve coordination of supply chain have been proposed based on the comparison between a soft systems model and actual practice. These alternatives were summarised into seven general principles that help define the role of individual companies in coordinating ETO supply chains, highlighting the company’s structures and interdependencies that lead to project tardiness. Due to the specific nature of a project which changes according to the context, it is difficult to generalise the soft systems model. Nevertheless, future research can further explore some of the principles proposed to deal with coordination problems experienced in other types of ETO project operations, such as construction and oil and gas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By integrating the approaches of Forrester and Burbidge [Forrester, J. W. 1961. Industrial Dynamics. Pegasus Communications; Burbidge, J. L. 1961. “The “New Approach” to Production.” Production Engineer 40: 769–784], a set of five design principles have emerged which provide a foundation for sound supply chain design. The ‘FORRIDGE’ principles have since been shown to be a powerful guide for effective design of make-to-stock supply chains. However, some have questioned the applicability of generic supply chain thinking, arguing for a tailored approach. Hence, the goal here is to investigate how these principles should be adapted for engineer-to-order (ETO) industries, such as construction, capital goods and shipbuilding. The empirical elements draw on an extensive study of 12 suppliers and two large contractors in the construction industry. Supply chain tactics are identified for this range of companies, which are matched with real world problems, and linked with the FORRIDGE principles. This results in an additional ‘Design for X’ principle being proposed. The contributions made are the adaptation of established principles for the ETO sector, and the framework behind these principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customer specific requirements is one of the key drivers in a supply chain strategy based on mass customization. At the same time there are intense pressure on price and short delivery lead times providing a complex environment for managing the supply chain. The complexity can be reduced by introducing the concept of a customer order decoupling point (CODP). The CODP separates the supply chain into two key processes that can be categorized as make-to-order (MTO) and make-to-stock (MTS) and constitutes the two key building blocks of a system based on the mass customization concept. The dynamic properties of the MTS environment have been extensively researched using the automatic pipeline-, inventory-, and order-based production control system (APIOBPCS) archetype. In contrast to MTS systems, the customer facing MTO process, which is usually exposed to a more volatile demand stream suitable for an agile strategy, is less well investigated. Agility does, however, frequently not mean that infinite capacity is available but that there is some surplus capacity available and that the capacity can be adapted to the customer requirements in certain time frames. When the adaptation is not instant but requires some time to take effect the delay creates a dynamic backlog represented by the order book which affects the delivery lead time. Since controlling lead times is a key factor in providing reliable delivery promises an order book control logic is introduced. It is also shown that the new MTO model of the customer facing part of a mass customization system is an extension to the well established APIOBPCS framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicle supply has traditionally been based on forecast-driven production, and a large fraction of cars has been sold from stock-a practice which incurs considerable cost in terms of stock holding and sales incentives. Derived from successes in other industries, the benefits of responsive supply systems capable of providing customized vehicles in short lead-times have been pointed out. While the theoretical discussion of such `build-to-order' (B TO) strategies is well advanced, the dynamic feasibility of implementing these concepts is far from understood. Using a simulation of a multi-tier supply chain-system, this paper investigates the impact of altering key aspects of the scheduling activities with the objective of determining the scope for potential improvements in responsiveness of the supply chain. The simulation results show that current vehicle supply systems are not capable of supporting BTO due to insufficient feedback between supply and demand, as well as due to the strong reliance on forecasting in the scheduling process. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations on how to improve current scheduling systems towards increasing the content of vehicles built to customer order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concepts of value and waste, and how they relate to housebuilding supply chains. The article reviews research on supply chain management. It also reviews general trends and areas of relevant research in construction supply chains and housebuilding supply chains. A case study is used to show the meaning and relevance of value and waste in housebuilding supply chains. Finally, the article presents improvement opportunities that are viable within the context of an engineering change model.

Effective supply chain design is achieved by careful consideration of the two main flows that constitute a supply chain. These are the flow of information down the supply chain and the transportation of material up the supply chain towards the end customer. Traditionally, a manufacturing plant is distanced from the end customer by retailers, wholesale distributors, and the manufacturing company's own sales, marketing and distribution functions. The supply chain results in the phenomenon known as the "Law of Industrial Dynamics," in which true market demand is distorted, and amplified, as orders are placed from one echelon to the next along the supply chain. Large fluctuations in demand result for the manufacturer leading to policies which counteract the objectives of materials logistics management which are to, reduce inventories while maintaining strategic stocks, improve product quality, minimize the total cost of operations, procurement and ensure adequate service levels customers and minimize variance in material flow. It is with these aims in mind that adequate thought must be given to establishing a mechanism by which the "Law of Industrial Dynamics" may be suppressed or minimized.