摘要

In this paper we consider supply chains with multiple stages of serial or network structure. The supply chains are endogenous in the sense that they involve queues because each order's lead-time is dependent on the orders already in the system. We define supply chain responsiveness as the probability of fulfilling customer orders within a promised lead-time and study the problems of measuring and optimizing supply chain responsiveness using queueing network models. We first consider a single-server multi-stage serial supply chain and find a closed form expression for the fulfilment time distribution. For the multi-server multi-stage problem, the closed form evaluation of the fulfilment time distribution becomes intractable due to the dependency of the lead-times in different stages. We circumvent this difficulty by proposing a novel FCFS discipline which enables a closed-form analysis. For the multi-server multi-stage Jackson-type supply chain network, to enable analysis, we convert the system into an equivalent single server single stage system with state-dependent rates. For each case, we present detailed numerical examples for both measurement and the optimization of supply chain responsiveness.

  • 出版日期2018-1-1