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Ethiopia has made enormous efforts in the leather industry to gain manufacturing capabilities that can be scaled up to other sectors. Those efforts have resulted in the industry shifting its role from raw material supplier to producer of value-added products for the global supply chain (GSC). However, the industry has faced severe challenges in generating the expected revenue, utilizing capacity, and finally coping with the global competitive environment. Studies reveal that manufacturing firms tackle similar challenges by improving their supply chain performance (SCP). The challenges that appeared in the leather industry of Ethiopia could also be solved by improving its SCP. Nonetheless, there is a lack of study on the basic characteristics and SCP of the industry after it has shifted its role. The main objective of this study is, therefore, to measure the SCP to know where it stands using a bench mark and identify the elements that contribute considerably to the low overall SCP in order to lay the foundation for subsequent improvement. To achieve the research objective, data was collected from primary and secondary sources through a questionnaire, survey, observation, and focus group discussion. The data is analyzed using the supply chain operations reference model (SCOR version 12.0). Accordingly, the overall SCP is found to be 67.33%, suggesting an average rating as per the set benchmark. The source process is identified as the most influential element for the overall low SCP, with a percentage gap of 17.23%. Taking corrective action on the identified elements could help the industry overcome the existing challenges by improving its SCP.

Stroh formalism provides an elegant method of solution for two-dimensional anisotropic elasticity problems through the generalized eigen relation associated with the dual coordinate system that gives the material eigen values and eigen vectors, and also the fundamental elasticity matrix and its associated Barnett-Lothe tensors. The extended Stroh-like formalism of Hwu and Hsieh has expanded the scope of basic Stroh formalism by addressing the electro-mechanical coupling effects in electro elastic plates. This paper presents an inclusive solution that addresses the two-dimensional problems in infinite electro-elastic, anisotropic, and isotropic plates with an arbitrary hole under remote arbitrary coupled electro-mechanical loading. This is achieved by adopting the Stroh formalism and its subsequent versions to consider the anisotropic and electro-elastic plates, and further, by incorporating the arbitrary biaxial loading condition into the boundary conditions, and the generalized mapping function into the basic formulation to accommodate all types of in plane loading and a variety of hole shapes respectively. Various equations of the solution are derived explicitly for easy understanding and computer implementation. The stress function is derived explicitly to satisfy the condition of traction free hole with remote electro-mechanical loading under generalized plane stress-open circuit condition. The stresses and electric displacements around the hole boundary are obtained by taking the derivative of the stress function with respect to unit normal along the hole boundary. The solution presented can be degenerated to the anisotropic or isotropic case by choosing the corresponding material properties, or appropriate values of complex parameters respectively. This general solution has exactly reproduced the results of other solutions in the literature for piezoelectric plates given by different methods. New results of stresses and electric displacements are obtained for various arbitrary holes in [PZT5H/45/-45/PZT5H]s graphite/epoxy plate and PZT 4 plates. Results for holes in piezoelectric laminates and PZT 4 piezo layer are also presented by FEM.