Synchronization in supply chains: implications for design and management

M Khouja ()
Additional contact information
M Khouja: University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Journal of the Operational Research Society, 2003, vol. 54, issue 9, 984-994

Abstract: Abstract Supply chain management literature calls for coordination between the different members of the chain. Materials should be moved from one supplier to the next according to a just-in-time schedule. In this paper, we show that for many supply chain configurations, complete synchronization will result in some members of the chain being ‘losers’ in terms of cost. We develop an algorithm for optimal synchronization of supply chains and provide some guidelines for incentive alignment along the supply chain. In developing the model, we use the economic delivery and scheduling problem model and analyze supply chains dealing with single and multiple components. For single-component supply chains, we derive a closed-form expression for the optimal synchronized cycle time. For multi-component supply chains, we develop an algorithm for finding the optimal synchronized cycle time. We test the performance of the algorithm and show that it provides optimal solutions for a wide range of problems. We illustrate the models with numerical examples.

Keywords: inventory control; synchronization; supply chain management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601606 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:54:y:2003:i:9:d:10.1057_palgrave.jors.2601606

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... search/journal/41274

DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601606

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the Operational Research Society is currently edited by Tom Archibald and Jonathan Crook

More articles in Journal of the Operational Research Society from Palgrave Macmillan, The OR Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().