Coordination of Converging Material Flows Under Conditions of Uncertainty in Supply Chains

Liesje Boeck () and Nico Vandaele ()
Additional contact information
Liesje Boeck: HUBrussel
Nico Vandaele: K.U.Leuven

A chapter in Supply Chain Coordination under Uncertainty, 2011, pp 525-542 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter examines the coordination of converging material (component) flows in supply chains under conditions of uncertainty. It is well known that such flows complicate regular material flows. They entail that the components should wait for each other (synchronization time of components) and induce a modified arrival process on the part of the sets of components at the assembly operation (arrival process of kits). As such, they play a major role in supply chain performance. In order to improve this performance, one can rely on some important generic managerial insights: if component flows are independent renewal processes and warehouses have enough (infinite) capacity, the flows do not get synchronized; more variable component flows degrade system performance; more frequent component supply (keeping the level of variability fixed) does not change the synchronization time but improves productivity; more components degrade system performance and, finally, component flows need coordination. This chapter develops approximations in order to underpin these managerial insights and concludes by extending these insights to practical guidelines.

Keywords: Converging flows; Coordination; Supply chains; Uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:spr:ihichp:978-3-642-19257-9_21

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783642192579

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-19257-9_21

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in International Handbooks on Information Systems from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().