An event-driven manufacturing information system architecture for Industry 4.0

Future manufacturing systems need to be more flexible, to embrace tougher and constantly changing market demands. They need to make better use of plant data, ideally utilising all data from the entire plant. Low-level data should be refined to real-time information for decision-making, to facilitate competitiveness through informed and timely decisions. The Line Information System Architecture (LISA), is presented in this paper. It is an event-driven architecture featuring loose coupling, a prototype-oriented information model and formalised transformation services. LISA is designed to enable flexible factory integration and data utilisation. The focus of LISA is on integration of devices and services on all levels, simplifying hardware changes and integration of new smart services as well as supporting continuous improvements on information visualisation and control. The architecture has been evaluated on both real industrial data and industrial demonstrators and it is also being installed at a large automotive company. This article is an extended and revised version of the paper presented at the 2015 IFAC Symposium on Information Control in Manufacturing (INCOM 2015). The paper has been restructured in regards to the order and title of the chapters, and additional information about the integration between devices and services aspects have been added. The introduction and the general structure of the paper now better highlight the contributions of the paper and the uniqueness of the framework.     

The value of information systems for product recovery management

This article sheds light on the role of information systems in product recovery management. We first develop analytical models and then provide a numerical example to determine under what conditions investments in Information-intensive Product Recovery Systems (IPRS) are economically justifiable for manufacturers and when policy-makers need to consider facilitating their implementation. The results of the analytical models indicate that the recovery network (collection) structure and product characteristics determine if precision improvements or increased sorting speed associated with IS investments will lead to higher profit gains. Manufacturers should carefully assess conflicting impacts of current manufacturing and recycling technology trends on the value of IPRS. Implementing IPRS might end up reducing manufacturers' profits under a highly time efficient decentralised collection structure. We show that negotiations with competitors about IPRS implementation may lead to a win–win situation and allow consumers to enjoy the lowest product price if the binding force of the agreement is strong. Otherwise, some manufacturers follow free-rider strategies. This article has immediate application to manufacturers' IS strategy and to government policy-makers considering investing in and/or structuring product recovery closed-loop supply chain processes within their jurisdictions. It also opens a potential stream of research concerning the role of IPRS to automate, informate and transform closed-loop supply chains for eco-efficiency.     

SHARED: An information model for cooperative product development

One fundamental issue in developing collaborative engineering systems is the representation of product information which supports communication and coordination. This product information includes not only the geometric and physical properties of the product and its parts, but also information about functions, constraints and the design rationale. In this paper, we describe an information model, SHARED, which was developed for encoding product information in DICE, a distributed and integrated environment for computer-aided engineering. SHARED provides multiple levels of both functional and geometric abstractions, multiple views and techniques for maintaining consistency between the various abstractions and views. These elements are essential for a good representation model of product information. The use of the SHARED model is illustrated through an example, depicting the various representations of a product as it evolves through the design process. The SHARED model has been implemented over a distributed OODBMS as a toolkit/framework for developing environments which need to model, manipulate and communicate product information between distributed cooperating applications, while supporting coordination between them.     

Review of supply chain configuration and design decision-making for new product

The nature of competitive markets continuously pushes manufacturers to develop new products to meet the increasingly diversified customer demands. Manufacturers thus have to handle the complexities generated during the total life cycles of various product types, from product design to procurement, production, marketing and recycling. Though some management practices in mass customisation help to improve the performance of manufacturing systems, there are still some fundamental problems not covered. Joint decision-making of product and supply chain design, for example, is one of them. The existing industrial practice tends to treat these two problems separately. Decoupling these two problems decrease the design complexity but may lead to suboptimal decision outcome. To enhance understanding of the interconnected decisions for supply chain management and product design, this review collects related literature on this topic and focuses on the analysis of existing papers from an operation research perspective.     

An approach for estimating the end-of-life product disassembly effort and cost

Disassembly is the process of physically separating a product into its parts or subassembly pieces. The overall economics of the disassembly process, and in particular the cost to disassemble, is still not well understood. In this paper our goal is to introduce a methodology that will support and facilitate the economic analysis of the disassembly activity. We present a multi-factor model to compute the disassembly effort index (DEI) score, which is representative of the total operating cost to disassemble a product. The DEI score can then be compared against the projected market value of the disassembled parts and subassemblies to get an economic measure. To develop the DEI model we surveyed a variety of commercial disassembly facilities. Based on these surveys we propose a multifactor weighted estimation scheme. The seven factors are (i) time, (ii) tools, (iii) fixture, (iv) access, (v) instruct, (vi) hazard, and (vii) force requirements. The DEI scale is defined in the 0 to 100 range. This range is assigned on a weighted basis to each of the seven factors. For each factor, an independent utility scale is formulated, using the assigned range as anchors. Using a conversion scale the DEI score is used to derive an estimate of disassembly cost and the disassembly return on investment. An example is presented.     

回购契约下应对突发事件的供应链协调策略

在基本回购契约模型基础上,分析了回购契约下实现供应链协调的条件,并针对突发事件造成零售商面临的需求分布变化时供应链协调被打破的问题,提出了具有抗突发事件性的回购契约。这个契约主要将增加的供应商成本考虑进回购价格,使得供应商新增加的成本能够在供应商和零售商之间分配,从而使新的回购契约实现对突发事件的协调应对。应用一个算例对比加以说明。     

Proactive environmental strategies and performance: role of green supply chain processes and green product design in the Chinese high-tech industry

Though many firms still believe that passive environmental strategies are sufficient, it is pertinent that they move beyond this belief and take a proactive supply chain-wide environmental stance so as to create a sustainable environment. In this paper, we seek to extend current work within green supply chain management by considering multiple green supply chain capabilities and performance measures. We hypothesise the linkage between environmental orientation, green supply chain capabilities and performance by drawing upon stakeholder theory and natural resource-based view. More importantly, our study is the first to distinguish between product and process-related capabilities in the green supply chain area and study their direct and mediating role with respect to environmental and financial performance measures. Using survey data collected from 256 Chinese-based high-tech firms, we analyse several hypothesised relationships. Our results provide strong support for the significant role that green product design and green supply chain processes can play in improving firms’ environmental and financial performance. Interestingly, our results also suggest that green product design may not have a direct impact on financial performance.     

Optimal ordering policy for a price-setting newsvendor with option contracts under demand uncertainty

In this article, we investigate the newsvendor problem in a joint ordering and pricing setting in the presence of option contracts under demand uncertainty. At the beginning of a single selling season, the newsvendor who faces additive stochastic demand can obtain goods through two ways: ordering from a firm or purchasing and exercising call options. Single ordering (ordering from a firm only or purchasing and exercising call options only) and mixed ordering (ordering from a firm and purchasing and exercising call options simultaneously) cases are investigated. We find that the newsvendor’s optimal pricing and ordering strategies exist and are unique for both cases, respectively. In addition, when both cases are available, mixed ordering is the newsvendor’s optimal ordering policy. If only single ordering is available, the newsvendor prefers ordering from a firm when demand risk is low, while enjoys purchasing and exercising call options when demand risk is high. We also find that with option contracts, the newsvendor’s optimal order quantity and maximum expected profit are all decreasing in the option price and exercise price of product, while the optimal retail price in terms of option price and exercise price of product are intricate. Moreover, we show that, mixed ordering is more capable to deal with supply price volatility risk.     

Pricing and effort decisions for a supply chain with uncertain information

This paper analyses the pricing and effort decisions of a supply chain with single manufacturer and single retailer. The manufacturer produces a kind of product and then wholesales the product to the retailer, who in turn retails it to customers over a single selling season. The retailer can influence demand through her sales effort. This research depicts the consumer demand, the manufacturing cost and the sales effort cost as uncertain variables. Considering the demand expansion effectiveness of sales effort, one centralised and three decentralised game models are built on the basis of the expected value criterion, and the equilibrium solutions are obtained. We investigate the effects of the parameters’ uncertainty degrees on the pricing and effort decisions. The results indicate that the manufacturer benefits from improvement in demand and cost uncertainties when he has at least bargaining power in the supply chain. The results also imply that the uncertainty degree of sales effort elasticity has an outstanding influence on the pricing and effort decisions, whereas the uncertainty degree of price elasticity has a modest impact on these decisions. We also study the effects of the parameters’ uncertainty degrees on the supply chain from the consumers’ perspective. The results suggest that with a power retailer, the retail price should always be on the high end. Consequently, consumers do not necessarily benefit from a power retailer. When the manufacturer and the retailer have equal bargaining power, consumers do not necessarily benefit from the supply chain, either.     

Option contracts for online celebrities as retailers in supply chains

The online celebrity economy, also called the internet celebrity economy, is growing rapidly in China. Celebrity retailers are usually demand sensitive and capital constrained. The capital constraints along with information asymmetry often render supply chains inefficient when manufacturers are producing at non-optimal levels. Few studies have shed light on the online celebrity supply chain, especially with respect to options. In this study, we examine how option contracts can coordinate supply chains. We find that a capital-constrained retailer can achieve more profitable orders when given an option. The manufacturer – without the full information of market demand – also benefits from offering an option to the retailer. Our numerical case shows that the options contract generates different payoffs depending on the capital of the retailer.     

Decentralised decision-making with information sharing vs. centralised decision-making in supply chains

In recent years, implementing coordination mechanisms in decentralised supply chains to reduce the well-known negative effects of decentralisation, such as the ‘bullwhip effect’, has become a considerable challenge. Furthermore, with the dramatic developments in information and communication technologies, real-time information sharing has become increasingly easier to implement. In this work, we study a mono-product divergent supply chain composed of a supplier, a warehouse, retailers and customers in the context of decentralised and centralised decisions. The main objective of this study is to compare a decentralised supply chain combined with different scenarios of simultaneous upstream and downstream information sharing vs. a centralised supply chain. A mathematical model is developed to compare the logistics costs in the two decision contexts. The experimental results clearly show that the simultaneous sharing of customer demand and supplier-warehouse lead time information in a decentralised supply chain yields nearly equivalent logistics costs as the centralised supply chain context. However, the main beneficiary of the sharing is the warehouse, which receives approximately two-thirds of the benefit. Thus, incentives and revenue sharing contracts should be implemented to motivate and balance the benefits between supply chain partners.     

律师事务所管理系统关系数据库设计

本文介绍了律师事务所计算机管理系统设计中所遇到的关系数据库设计问题 ,根据系统实际需求 ,提出了关系数据库的设计和实现方法 .     

焦化企业危险源信息管理系统的分析与设计

通过对国内外焦化企业危险源状况的调查分析,引入数据库技术,提出了焦化企业危险源的信息标准.结合我国危险源控制与管理的实际情况,实现了焦化企业危险源的辨识分析与控制的动态信息管理系统,这对焦化企业实现安全生产、提高安全管理水平具有重要的现实意义.     

Demand information sharing and channel choice in a dual-channel supply chain with multiple retailers

In this paper, under a dual-channel supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and multiple retailers, we investigate vertical and horizontal information sharing in different channel structures and the manufacturer’s choice on whether or not to keep a direct channel. To this end, we first study the dual-channel structure where uncertain demand is a linear function of price with a generalised-distribution base demand and show that the retailers have incentives to share information horizontally but not vertically, while the manufacturer is better off with vertical information sharing but its expected profit is not affected by horizontal information sharing. We next examine the retail-channel structure and find the basic results remain unchanged. Finally, we provide closed-form internal and external conditions under which the manufacturer can benefit from owning a dual-channel structure. Our study extends the existing literature by combining information sharing and dual-channel choice, introducing channel difference, discussing the impact of channel structure on horizontal and vertical sharing as well as providing interesting managerial insights for channel choice.     

Competition and cooperation in a supply chain with an offline showroom under asymmetric information

Offline showrooms develop rapidly to resolve consumers’ uncertainty about whether products fit their needs when they purchase online. This paper considers a supply chain where an offline showroom provides experience service for an existing online retailer and intends to introduce a new competing online retailer to satisfy consumers’ heterogeneous demand. The offline showroom has better knowledge of demand information due to closer to offline consumers. We examine the impact of competition and the offline showroom's optimal channel cooperation strategy under asymmetric information and analyse the equilibrium results under the optimal strategy to shed light on channel cooperation and information strategy for supply chain members. We find that under asymmetric information competition prompts the offline showroom to conceal information which generates signal cost (negative information effect) and to increase experience service level which creates value (positive service effect). The optimal channel cooperation strategy depends on the trade-off between these effects. We also find that competition increases the existing online retailer's profit in some conditions. Besides, in some conditions information asymmetry harms all supply chain members, which suggests the offline showroom to share information with the online retailers; in some conditions, information asymmetry harms the offline showroom but benefits the online retailers.     

Supply chain optimisation with both production and transportation integration: multiple vehicles for a single perishable product

This paper deals with an extension of the integrated production and transportation scheduling problem (PTSP) by considering multiple vehicles (PTSPm) for optimisation of supply chains. The problem reflects a real concern for industry since production and transportation subproblems are commonly addressed independently or sequentially, which leads to sub-optimal solutions. The problem includes specific capacity constraints, the short lifespan of products and the special case of the single vehicle that has already been studied in the literature. A greedy randomised adaptive search procedure (GRASP) with an evolutionary local search (ELS) is proposed to solve the instances with a single vehicle as a special case. The method has been proven to be more effective than those published and provides shorter computational times with new best solutions for the single vehicle case. A new set of instances with multiple vehicles is introduced to favour equitable future research. Our study extends previous research using an indirect resolution approach and provides an algorithm to solve a wide range of one-machine scheduling problems with the proper coordination of single or multiple vehicles.     

An integrated decision support system for strategic supply chain optimisation in process industries: the case of a zinc company

We introduce a menu-driven user-friendly decision support system (DSS) for supply chain planning based on optimisation. The DSS is based on a multi-source (supplier), multi-destination (warehouse) network having multiple manufacturing facilities, with multiple materials and multiple storage areas. This integrated supply chain model performs multiple period planning. The use of this DSS requires little knowledge of management sciences tools. We discuss the need for an integrated approach towards supply chain modelling for the process industry. We present the integrated model in the form of a database structure. We validate the model with the real data of a zinc company and demonstrate the impact of optimisation in terms of percentage improvement. The result shows that it is possible to improve unit contribution to profit from 1.89 to 4.66%.     

Integrated low-carbon distribution system for the demand side of a product distribution supply chain: a DoE-guided MOPSO optimiser-based solution approach

This article contributes to distribution system literature on three inter-linked aspects viz. formulation of a novel integrated low-carbon/green distribution system for the demand side of a Supply Chain (SC) with a single product and multiple consumers, i.e. drop-off points, a novel and robust solution approach through a Design of Experiment (DoE)-guided Multiple-Objective Particle Swarm Optimisation (MOPSO) optimiser and exhaustive analysis of the solutions (i.e. prioritisation, ranking and scenario analysis). The total costs, CO₂ emission and the traversed distances of the vehicles during transportation are optimised. The optimisation model for the strategic decision-making is formulated by effectively integrating the 0–1 mixed-integer programming with a green constraint based on Analytic Hierarchy Process. Due to the computationally NP-hard characteristic of the model, a systematic and technically robust DoE-guided solution approach is designed using a commercial solver – modeFRONTIER^®. DoE guides the solution through the MOPSO optimiser in order to eliminate the un-realistic set of feasible and optimal solution sets. A popular multi-attribute decision-making approach, TOPSIS, evaluates the solutions found from the Pareto optimal solution space of the solver. Finally, decision-makers’ preferences are analysed for monitoring the changes in the controlling parameters with respect to the changes in the decisions. A scenario analysis of the events by considering alternative possible outcomes is also conducted. It is found that the implemented methodology successfully routes the vehicles with optimal costs and low-carbon emission thus contributing to greening the environment on the demand side of a SC network.     

A fractal perspective-based methodological framework for supply chain modelling and distributed simulation with multi-agent system

With the development of global economy, supply chain, as a recognised complex system, is becoming more complex for analysis. In this context, it is worth introducing the perspective of complex system in perceiving and modelling of supply chain system to address its dynamic, stochastic and uncertain characteristics. Therefore, this paper proposes a methodological framework of supply chain modelling and simulation based on the fractal perspective, and presents an all-round and systematic exposition of concept modelling and distributed simulation by means of multi-agent technology. In this framework, different supply chain scenarios focusing on manufacturing, inventory and transportation can be easily modelled and simulated at different scales and levels. In addition, a prototype system which implements the methodological framework and the key implementation techniques are presented as well. Finally, a supply chain example, which supposes manufacturer as the core member, is modelled and simulated with the prototype system to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.     

Supply chain network design with multi-time-period stochastic demands for optimizing dual objectives on economic and environmental factors

ABSTRACT

Traditional supply chain management focuses on operational and financial factors, such as improving operational efficiency and reducing cost. Since global warming has become critical, researchers and managers of the supply chain have paid more attention to environmental issues. With the environmental factor, the complexity in designing an optimal supply chain network essentially increases. This research considers a multi-objective (minimal total cost and CO₂ emissions) supply chain network design with environmental factor (SCNDEF), which includes the features of multiple echelons, stochastic demands, production/storage capacity, environmental investment, and multiple time periods. In order to help managers make decisions about the SCNDEF, this research performs sensitivity analyses to investigate the effect of key parameters, such as customers’ satisfaction level and limits on CO₂ emissions, on the performance of the supply chain network. Numerical examples are given to verify the proposed methodology. The results show that a good SCNDEF can not only improve the performance of the entire supply chain but also achieve sustainable environmental protection. These research findings are intended to serve as practical reference for industry.