In an upstream supply chain dedicated to the mass production of customized products, many sources create production instability: the level and structure of production in the final assembly line, variability of lead times, quality issues, packaging and loading constraints on transportation,...

The transition from synchronous supplies to synchronous production represent a possible alternative to the neighbourhood logistics configurations, especially in the automotive industry. It allows to gain, on certain conditions, efficiency and more manoeuvrability faced with a strong variability...

Facing such issues as demand uncertainty and in- and cross-channel competition, managers of today's retail chains are keen to find optimal strategies that help their firms to adapt to the increasingly competitive business environment. To help retail managers to address their challenges, we...

For revenue optimization problems in the literature on revenue management, supply chain management, and queueing systems, some assumptions (such as concavity of revenue functions or increasing generalized failure rate) are often needed to ensure the problems to be analytically tractable. We show...

As policy makers seek to draw lessons from the growth of Chinese manufacturing, we need to better understand the evolving strategies adopted by Chinese manufacturers since the economic reforms of the 1980s. Focusing on the apparel and electronics sectors, we look at how Chinese manufacturers...

The transport sector represents a major item on the global balance of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Natural gas is considered the alternative fuel that, in the short-medium term, can best substitute conventional fuels in order to reduce their environmental impact, because it is readily...

This article analyzes the incentives and compensation problems faced by cellulosic ethanol producer and logging firms and the consequent impact on the organization of the wood based cellulosic ethanol industry in the US. The success of this relationship is central to setting up the biofuel...

Consider a firm, called the buyer, that satisfies its demand over two periods by assigning both demands to a supplier via a second-price procurement auction; call this the Standard auction. In the hope of lowering its purchase cost, the firm is considering an alternative procedure in which it...

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to compare the critical issues (quality, cost, flexibility, competitiveness, resource utilization and innovation) of sourcing in manufacturing, service and R&D companies in order to explore the most crucial characteristics of R&D supply chain to define the...

Under circumstances of increasing environmental pressures from markets and regulators, focal companies in supply chains have recognized the importance of greening their supply chain through green supplier development programs. Various studies have started to explore the inter-relationships...