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This paper addresses two fundamental issues inherent to every manufacturing system. These issues concern the coordination and control of manufacturing activities. In doing so, many aspects are reviewed and analysed. First, the main distributed manufacturing paradigms are briefly introduced. Next, the various forms of interdependence that commonly constrain manufacturing activities are reviewed, as well as the coordination mechanisms used to manage them. Then, after analysing different approaches developed to address coordination and control of manufacturing activities in distributed and agent-based manufacturing systems, this paper highlights the limits of the existing classification schemes for coordination mechanisms and provides a new scheme that extends beyond those previously reviewed in order to take into account recent advances. The studied distributed manufacturing paradigms are finally compared in terms of coordination and control.

This article proposes a multicriteria approach and a decision support system to support multimodal transportation planning decisions by considering transportation delay, costs, and carbon emissions. The methodology is implemented into CarbonRoadMap, a web-based application that allows a decision maker to browse through the set of Pareto-optimal paths, display them on a map to support the selection of the desired optimum solution by weighting the three criteria. This decision support tool shows the benefits of using a multicriteria optimization methodology to obtain a set of paths, as the resulting solutions are very different from one another. A case study is provided for forest product distribution in North America.

This paper examines a multi-item dynamic production-distribution planning problem between a manufacturing location and a distribution center. Transportation costs between the manufacturing location and the distribution center offer economies of scale and can be represented by general piecewise linear functions. The production system at the manufacturing location is a serial process with a multiple parallel machines bottleneck stage and divergent finishing stages. A predetermined production sequence must be maintained on the bottleneck machines. A tight mixed-integer programming model of the production process is proposed, as well as three different formulations to represent general piecewise linear functions. These formulations are then used to develop three equivalent mathematical programming models of the manufacturer-distributor flow planning problem. Valid inequalities to strengthen these formulations are proposed and the strategy of adding extra 0–1 variables to improve the branching process is examined. Tests are performed to compare the computational efficiency of these models. Finally, it is shown that by adding valid inequalities and extra 0–1 variables, major computational improvements can be achieved.

Because of international competition, the development of new technologies and the increase of production and energy costs, enterprises must improve their supply chains and change their ways of doing business. They also have to collaborate with their suppliers, distributors and retailers in order to better respond to market demand. This kind of relationship can be based on well-known collaboration models like collaborative, planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) or vendor managed inventory (VMI), so as to correctly exchange products and information. However, it is necessary to choose the right collaboration approach that will be profitable for all partners. In this article, we study different collaboration strategies between a pulp and paper producer and its retailer. For this particular context, we identify the collaboration mode that is the most profitable for each actor, based on real costs and parameters obtained from the industrial case. We also develop a method to better share collaboration benefits and ensure a relationship advantageous for everyone. We demonstrate that if the producer shares a part of the transportation or inventory savings with its partner, the CPFR method can be profitable for both partners and generate the greatest total system profit.

The new economic challenges and recent trends in globalization have made it very difficult for Canadian forest product companies to improve their financial position without the coordinated involvement of the entire company, including their supply chains (distributed facilities, company offices, industrial customers, and distributors). Such a new level of efficiency involves their distributed facilities and offices spread around the world, and their customers. One consequence of this new reality is that forest products companies are now facing the need to re-engineer their organizational processes and business practices with their partners. To do this they must adopt new technologies to support the coordination of their planning and control efforts in a customer-centered environment. This paper first proposes a generic software architecture for development of an experimentation environment to design and test distributed advanced planning and scheduling systems. This architecture enables combination of agent-based technology and operations research-based tools in order to first take advantage of the ability of agent technology to integrate distributed decision problems, and, second, to take advantage of the ability of operations research to develop and exploit specific normative decision models. Next, this paper describes how this architecture has been configured into an advanced planning and scheduling tool for the lumber industry. Finally, we present how an application of this advanced planning tool is currently being validated and tested in a real manufacturing setting.

Interest has been raised by the recent identification of potential savings through collaborative planning in logistics operations. Even though substantial savings can be realized, two key questions exist: (i) how should potential savings be divided among a group of collaborating companies and (ii) among potential collaborating companies, how should collaborating group(s) be formed? These two questions are studied in a specific context: among potential collaborating companies; a subset, denoted the leading companies, performs collaborative planning on behalf of the others and together, they initiate formation of a collaborating group. We use the concept of a business model to detail such context. Based on the literature on network formation where potential savings are modelled by a cooperative game, four business models are explored in four different subsets of leading companies. We propose a network model as a method to determine the stable collaborating group in each computation. A case study including eight forest companies is described and analyzed. Results show that very different solution characteristics can be achieved depending on the business model selected.

In our research, we study the case of a pulp and paper producer who decides to establish a partnership with one buyer. Using two different types of relationship, namely a traditional system without any collaboration scheme and Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment, we develop decision models describing the producer and the buyer planning processes. We also identify which approach is more profitable for each actor as well as for the network, based on real costs and parameters obtained from the industrial case. We then test how different incentives can improve the traditional system and provide higher gains for each partner. Our results show that using incentives increases the system's profit by up to 4% if parameters are well defined.

This paper describes the Wood Supply Game (WSG), a prize-winning e-learning tool that is freely available for players all over the world. The game effectively helps students and managers realize the challenges in managing demand and supply in wood supply chains, and gain insight into the types of measures required to make these divergent chains effective. The WSG is an adaptation of the Beer game, a popular didactic tool used to empirically demonstrate demand amplification in a simple and generic context. The supply chain modeled by the Beer game does not involve co-products, and thus is very different from the wood supply chain, which is divergent by nature. The WSG presented in this paper models a supply network with one point of divergence and demand for two products. This preserves the simplicity of the game but enables it to offer a base for supply network simulation in a large number of industrial sectors with divergent processes. We describe an online version of the WSG, discuss our experiences playing it with students and managers, and provide hints to the instructor.

In the rapidly changing world of market place evolution and pressures, many authors have studied new organizational forms. Within these new trends, this paper deals particularly with network organizations. An approach is thus proposed to integrate the overall business organization and to co-ordinate the business processes involved in achieving the overall organization goals. In this study, integration is concerned with the implementation of collaborative information structures, enabling efficient operation management and control among heterogeneous business entities. Thus, based on the contract theory from economic science, philosophical work done on conventions and the multiagent systems paradigm, a commitment-oriented co-ordination framework for business integration is proposed. These concepts present a new comprehensive formalization of business collaboration within networked manufacturing, insofar as they concern the modelling of many kinds of business interactions, including collaborative contingencies management and collaboration performance measurement. In order to illustrate this approach, a multiagent prototype using the commitment- oriented approach is finally presented.

There is a growing interest in supply management systems in today's competitive business environment. Importance of implementing supply management systems especially in home construction industry is due to the fact that several risks arising from different sources can adversely affect the project financially or its timely completion. Some risks of construction projects are out of managers' control while other risks such as supply related ones can usually be controlled and directed by effective managerial tactics. In this paper, we address the supplier selection problem (SSP) in wood-based construction industry (housing projects) in the presence of project commencement uncertainties. Based on the suppliers' (vendors') reaction towards these uncertainties in the delivery time, we explore two cases: (a) supplier selection with buyer penalty for a delay (SSPD) where the price of product increases with the delay; (b) supplier selection with quantity reduction for a buyer delay (SSQRD). Three heuristic-based supplier selection approaches are proposed and tested on randomly generated data sets. The proposed approaches show promising results

Transportation is an important part of the Canadian furniture industry supply chain. Even though there are often several manufacturers shipping in the same market region, coordination between two or more manufacturers is rare. Recently, important potential cost savings and delivery time reduction have been identified through transportation collaboration. In this paper we propose and test on a case study involving four furniture companies, a logistics scenario that allows transportation collaboration. Moreover, we address the key issue of cost savings sharing, especially when heterogeneous requirements by each collaborating company impact the cost-savings. To do so, we propose a new cost allocation method that is validated through a case study. Sensibility analysis and details about the actual outcome of the case study complete the discussion.

An understanding of supply chain management is a prerequisite for efficient supply operations. This paper presents the structure of training currently used in Sweden to prepare master’s-level foresters for managing wood supply operations. Based on a basic framework of professional tasks, eight key learning outcomes are targeted; one focuses on raw material requirements, three on securing supply, three on enabling delivery, and one on control and coordination. Sixteen exercises are used to meet the eight learning outcomes. An overview of the exercises is presented as well as the pedagogical approach used. Current training is focused on developing student understanding of the industrial context as well as competences and skills required to solve typical professional tasks. The paper concludes with a discussion of further development opportunities including a coupling of tasks and learning outcomes with applicable operations research methodology.

Sales and operations planning (S&OP) has become a widely recognized process of supply chain planning. However, until the present time, the evaluation of its benefits has been conducted mainly through post implementation case studies. This paper explores the fundamentals of the S&OP process and presents a modelling approach to evaluate its impact before implementation. Three MIP-based models are formulated representing, respectively, a multi-site supply-chain-based S&OP (SC-S&OP), that integrates the cross functional planning of sales, production, distribution, and procurement centrally; a multi-site sales–production planning-based S&OP (SP-S&OP), in which the joint sales and production planning is carried out centrally while the distribution and procurement are planned separately in each site; and a decoupled planning (DP), in which the sales planning is carried out centrally while the production, distribution, and procurement planning are performed separately and locally. The models are developed for an alternative multi-site manufacturing system that has different suppliers, produces different products and serves different customers on a make-to-order (MTO) basis where backlogs are allowed. The benefit of SC-S&OP is evaluated by comparing its financial performance over that of SP-S&OP and DP under deterministic seasonal demand and market price conditions. To illustrate the methodology, the models are applied to an Oriented Strand Board (OSB) manufacturing company in Quebec, Canada.

Canadian pulp and paper companies have been experiencing hard times during the last decade. The rising Canadian dollar, low-cost competition and the decline in number of conventional markets have led to several restructuring projects and shutdowns among pulp and paper mills. Setting up a transformation strategy is considered vital for those companies to overcome the crisis and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Several transformation pathways could be undertaken, ranging from process modernisation to product portfolio and market diversification. The increasingly volatile business environment makes strategic decisions a tough task. Our objective is then to help decision makers, within the pulp and paper industry, identify profitable transformation strategies that would resist the major driving forces affecting the companies’ competitiveness. A scenario-based modelling approach is presented to evaluate a set of transformation strategies under different trend-based future scenarios and to identify the most robust strategic options, allowing a given pulp and paper company to meet the future challenges. A mathematical model is developed to evaluate the profitability of each transformation strategy under different plausible future scenarios. Investing in high-value bioproducts such as Bioethanol is suggested as a viable transformation pathway. Opting for innovative pulp and paper products such moulded fibre packaging would be a promising strategy to consider within a multi-product diversification pathway. Mixed strategies are also evaluated and it is found that investing in bioethanol while modernising the P&P assets would be the most profitable and the less risky strategy, but with the highest investment cost among all strategies.

When a company is integrated vertically, it can manage and plan its overall value chain in one direct and integrated approach. However in many cases, companies follow a decoupled approach where forests and production plants optimize separately their processes in a supply-driven strategy. In Chile, the two largest forest companies are vertically integrated (i.e., they own forest and mills that produce logs, lumber, plywood, pulp, paper, and bioenergy, etc.). Historically, they have coordinated their value chains using a make-to-stock strategy, for which the forest is the main driver of the value chain activities. In this paper, we propose an integrated planning approach to show the impacts of a demand-driven integration of the value chain in the forest industry. To compare this strategy with the decoupled strategy, we propose a mixed integer programming (MIP) model for the integrated strategy. To illustrate our proposal, we use forest and production information from a Chilean forest company. The decoupled strategy, where the forest and industry planning are planned separately, uses two models. The first model deals with the forest management and harvesting decisions and maximizes the expected net present value (NPV) of logs. In this model, the planning horizon covers one full forest rotation, which in Chile corresponds to about 25 years. The second model maximizes the NPV of the downstream operations for a shorter business planning horizon (five years) constrained by the availability of the logs from the first model. In the integrated approach, all parts of the value chain (forest, transportation, and mills) are driven by final product demand and where the objective is tomaximize the profit of the company (NPV of the entire value chain). The demand is only given for the shorter business planning horizon. The two strategies are evaluated using the MIP model, and NPV is used to determine the best practice. According to the results, the NPV can increase up to 5.0% when, Lorsqu’une compagnie est intégrée verticalement, elle a la possibilité d’utiliser une approche directe et intégrée pour gérer et planifier de façon globale sa chaîne de valeur. Cependant, dans plusieurs cas, les compagnies adoptent une approche découplée où les forêts et les usines de production optimisent leurs processus séparément selon une stratégie dictée par l’approvisionnement. Au Chili, les deux plus importantes compagnies forestières sont intégrées verticalement, c.-a`-d. qu’elles possèdent des forêts et des usines qui produisent des grumes, du bois d’œuvre, du contreplaqué, de la pâte, du papier, de la bioénergie, etc. Historiquement, elles ont coordonné leurs chaînes de valeur en adoptant une stratégie de production sur stock selon laquelle la forêt est le principal moteur des activités de la chaîne de valeur. Dans cet article, nous proposons une approche de planification intégrée pour illustrer les impacts d’une intégration de la chaîne de valeur contrôlée par la demande dans l’industrie forestière. Pour comparer cette stratégie avec la stratégie découplée, nous proposons un modèle de programmation partiellement en nombres entiers pour la stratégie intégrée. Pour illustrer notre proposition, nous utilisons les informations au sujet de la forêt et de la production d’une compagnie forestière chilienne. Les stratégies découplées où la planification forestière et la planification industrielle sont effectuées séparément utilisent deux modèles. Le premier modèle porte sur les décisions d’aménagement et d’exploitation de la forêt et maximise la valeur actualisée nette (VAN) attendue des grumes. Dans ce modèle, l’horizon de planification s’étend sur une révolution complète de la forêt qui correspond a` environ 25 ans au Chili. Le second modèle maximise la VAN des activités en aval sur un horizon de planification des affaires plus court (cinq ans) en ayant comme contrainte la disponibilité des grumes selon le premier modèle. Dans l’approche intégrée, tous les mail

The construction of a decision assistant tool for order management is outlined. Given a factory, which has a certain capacity to satisfy a certain number of orders, the objective is to assign each order to a specific period, thus maximizing the level of customers' satisfaction. The optimization algorithm supports the sales department and forms an interface between customers' needs and the production system. By combining advances in information technology and optimization technology, a method is presented based on collaborative planning techniques that optimizes customer satisfaction as well as resource utilization. For this purpose, an algorithm was developed based on an integer program model. The tool was implemented using the Java programming environment and Cplex optimization software. The proposed model takes the form of an agent, evolving within a multi-agent system. The proposed algorithm is compared with the greedy heuristic used by the world-class motorcoach manufacturer for which this research was conducted. Computational results show that the agent-based method proposed outperformed a heuristic method currently used in industry.

Most revenue management publications dealing with substitutable products in a manufacturing context have focused on pricing issues. They consider that substitution is a customer’s decision which occurs as a response to product price differences. In our study, substitution is considered as the firm’s policy. We focus on the extension of the revenue management to practical applications in manufacturing and we are motivated by the Canadian softwood lumber case where product substitution is a common demand fulfillment practice. We aim, first, to propose a generic consumption model integrating both capacity control and product substitution decisions and second, to evaluate, using a rolling horizon simulation, the performance of this integrated model in different settings compared to common demand fulfillment approaches. In addition to practical implications, our study contributes to the existing demand fulfillment literature since we simulate different consumption models integrated with a Sales and Operations Planning model.

Objective This research aims to develop a basic understanding of a demand management process integrating sales and operations planning (S&OP) and order promising in a Make-To-Stock environment and to compare different demand management policies with limited capacity. Contribution Typical researches about demand management processes analyze few system specifications or vary few potential factors one at a time. Yet, additional insights can be obtained by employing a space-filling design and Kriging metamodeling for analysis. Methodology We compare two configurations of the integrated demand management process. While the First-Come First-Served concept is used at the order promising level for the first configuration, the second configuration uses nested booking limits and gives advantage to profitable customers and attractive periods. Considering various order arrival sequences, we generate Kriging metamodels that best describe the nonlinear relationships between four environmental factors (demand intensity, demand forecast error, customer heterogeneity and coefficient of variation) and three performance measures (yearly profit margin, yearly sales and high-priority fill rate) for Canadian softwood lumber firms. Since our simulation experiments are time-consuming, we employ a Latin hypercube design to efficiently take into account different market situations. Results Our analysis reveals the potential to improve the performance of the demand management process if we know high-priority customers needs before fulfilling low-priority orders and if we use nested booking limits concept.

This article presents an educational game to engage university and industrial stakeholders in collaborative training for supply chain management courses. The game will help students learn complex supply chain management issues. There are two integrated parts: a case ethod through an industrial case and an activity-based game featuring role plays based on international television shows such as Dragons’ Den in Canada or Shark Tank in the United States. We developed a game framework to illustrate how the game can be prepared and played in classrooms. Although the game is primarily developed for classroom teaching, it may be adapted to other training environments. We have provided two examples to demonstrate how the game can be played as a short game in conference environments. Game experiences and feedback are presented with comments from various game participants. By interacting with stakeholders and tackling a real-world business case, students can better understand stakeholders’ business goals, the importance of supply chain collaboration, and the impacts on supply chain decisions.

In this paper we address the impact of information sharing between firms of a manufacturing network. Firms of the network are selected and scheduled to produce an order based on a price—time evaluation of their bids using an optimal planning model for networked manufacturing. Networking strategies, where business relationships are characterized by different levels of shared information on price and capacity, are classified. An illustrative example sketches the impact of information sharing on networked manufacturing using three different kinds of bidding protocol expressing how firms aggregate their information to conform to networking requirements. Finally, the results show that higher networking flexibility in terms of price—time alternatives can be achieved when firms favor tight partnership relations, offering consequently a better scheduling performance.

Nous allons nous intéresser ici à la décision de faire ou de faire-faire dans le cadre d'un réseau logistique auto-organisé décentralisé. Nous aborderons, l'élaboration de la chaîne logistique potentielle qui permettra de prendre la décision des activités stratégiquement à externaliser / internaliser et de proposer une méthode d'établissement de la liste des fournisseurs potentiels. Cette première étape permet de construire le réseau de partenaires potentiels. Ensuite, nous proposons d'améliorer la relation clients-fournisseurs par une décentralisation du système de pilotage de la relation liant chaque partenaire dans le cadre d'un réseau logistique auto-organisé., (5e Congrès international de génie industriel, Le génie industriel et les nouveaux défis mondiaux Université Laval, Sainte-Foy, Québec, Canada 26 au 29 octobre 2003)

Dans le domaine de la production manufacturière, il est maintenant largement reconnu que l'unité compétitive dépasse l'entreprise pour se concentrer sur l'ensemble du réseau logistique. Ainsi, les entreprises ne sont plus directement en compétition entre elles, mais plutôt par l'intermédiaire des divers réseaux logistiques auxquelles elles appartiennent, impliquant ainsi chaque relation client-fournisseur depuis le fournisseur du fournisseur jusqu'au client du client. De plus en plus de travaux de recherche se concentrent sur l'amélioration de la performance globale des réseaux de production et de distribution à travers le concepts de supply chain management. Dans le cadre de cette problématique, cet article présente dans un premier temps le contexte industriel, puis un ensemble de travaux sur la mesure de la fiabilité des réseaux manufacturiers et logistiques, suivi de l'amélioration de la fiabilité de ces réseaux par des mécanismes d'accélération, puis finalement de l'apport de la simulation dans l'évaluation de la fiabilité. Cet article se terminera par la présentation d'un exemple de réseau manufacturier. La fiabilité que nous étudions ici concerne les retards de livraison ainsi que le respect des volumes livrés.

Dans ce papier, nous proposons un mécanisme de coordination permettant de réduire l’effet coup de fouet (i.e. l’augmentation de la variabilité de la demande) dans une chaîne logistique. Ce mécanisme repose sur des jetons permettant à une entreprise de séparer ses commandes en deux composantes : la partie « commande » représente ce dont elle a besoin pour faire face à la demande du marché alors que la partie « jetons » représente ce dont elle a besoin pour stabiliser ses inventaires. Pour valider notre approche, nous utilisons un modèle de chaîne logistique adapté du jeu de la bière (Beer Game) afin de prendre en compte les spécificités de l’industrie forestière du Québec (une province canadienne). Ce modèle est implémenté dans un tableur afin de pouvoir comparer expérimentalement notre approche à d’autres méthodes de passage de commandes., 5e Congrès international de génie industriel, 2003

The significant contribution of raw materials inbound logistics to the reduction of the procurement cost have motivated several recent studies, particularly in the forestry sector. New routing and truck scheduling techniques have been proposed to plan in advance the arrival of the trucks to the mill’s gates. Yet, little attention has been given to the trucks rece ption, unloading and internal movements until exiting the facilities. Consequently, congestion and queuing of the trucks at the mill gate often occur, increasing the duration and costs of the transportation services. This paper introduces the Raw Materials Reception Problem (RMRP) and presents an innovative solution approach anchored on Revenue Management principles often used in for example airline and hotel booking systems. The solution builds on segmenting carriers/trucks and their dynamic assignment to the time slots available at the unloading docks, awarding on -time arrivals. Direct unload at the production lines is further preferred. It avoids, whenever is possible, the passage in the intermediate stockyard, therefore leading to a reduction of the mate rial handling cost. Results of the application of this solution approach to the wood supply of a Portuguese pulp mill are presented. The case study encompasses 120 pulpwood daily deliveries on 6 possible unloading docks inside the mill. The proposed approa ch led to a reduction of 55% on the daily raw material reception cost when compared to the FIFO approach used today. The maximum waiting time for each truck was also reduced, particularly for the trucks on higher priority segments. This approach was implem ented in the Wood Delivery System prototype and then used for conducting a trade -off analysis that provided valuable information to support decision -making in respect to the design of the reception process.

An accounting system helps to provide information for planning and control of production. This article presents a Life Cycle Costing by using an Activity Based Costing approach of an innovative forestry company. In order to perform a cradle-to-gate assessment the study covers the forest and industrial activities of the forest product processing. The costs of each product in the portfolio are determined by the treatment activities they undergo. The inventory covers several years of activity of the company, which makes it possible to calculate the uncertainty of the average results with Monte Carlo simulation presented in the result section. Based on the results a products portfolio analysis was performed to identify the development progress phases of the mains products to support the product rollover strategy decision.

Strategic forest management planning models designed to maintain existing carbon stocks and maximize capacity for future sequestration can help identify underused opportunities to increase carbon stocks without diminishing other forest products. This study proposed a carbon stock unit that allows summing up the stocks in the different forest pools even if the decomposition far exceeds the planning horizon. This unit is used to integrate the methods and algorithms from the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector (CBM-CFS3) model into a wood supply model. The resulting model could be used to predict changes in carbon stocks, transfers between carbon pools, and greenhouse gas emissions that would result from every forest management activity. We tailored this model to meet different strategies: maximizing carbon storage in the forest, maximizing high-sustained timber yield, and achieving the dual objectives of yield and carbon storage. A range of management scenarios were simulated using the data of a 485,000 hectares mixed-wood forest in Quebec, Canada. Our results demonstrate that, with the reduction in the harvest rates, the increase in the ecosystem carbon storage is insufficient to offset the carbon losses associated with the increase in the harvest rates. Study Implications: In this article, we adopt the perspective of forest managers who contend that removing lumber from the forest can be achieved in a responsible way or in a way that does not affect the carbon stocks in the forest in the long term. We propose a model that integrates methods and algorithms from the CBM-CFS3 model to simulate carbon dynamics of aboveground and belowground biomass and dead organic matter, including soils. The model can be used to predict carbon storage potential within a forest region assuming a given management strategy. We used data of a large forest area to develop a number of sophisticated scenarios of strategic forest planning. Our results are consistent with the for