This book discusses supply chain management, focusing on developments within modelling the dynamic behaviour of the supply chain. Aimed at postgraduate students, researchers and practitioners, this book provides an in-depth knowledge of the dynamics of supply chains. Business trends such as the globalisation process and the increase of competition across many industrial sectors have forced companies to concentrate on their core competences and to outsource those activities in which they do not excel. As a consequence, companies no longer produce and distribute their goods in isolation, but being part of a supply chain or supply network, i.e. a set of interrelated companies who ultimately deliver the goods and services to the final customer. Despite the prevalence of supply chains as the primary form of production and distribution, their performance can be seriously hampered by the complex dynamics resulting from the collaboration and coordination (or lack thereof) among their members.
This book provides the reader with modelling tools to understand, analyse and improve the dynamic behaviour of supply chains. It assembles seminal works on supply chain models and recent developments on the topic in order to provide a comprehensive, unified vision of the field for researchers and practitioners who wish to grasp the challenges of supply chain management. Aside presenting the main elements, equations and performance indicators governing the dynamics of a supply chain, and the book addresses issues such as the effect of timely and accurately sharing the information across members, the influence of restrictions on the productive capacities of their members, or the impact of the variability of the lead times, among others. Furthermore, more complex supply chain structures such as non-serial supply networks or closed-loop supply chains are modelled and discussed. Relevant managerial insights regarding the causes of supply chain underperformance,as well as avenues to improve their efficiency can be extracted from the resulting models.
Jose M. Framinan is Full Professor in the Industrial Management Department at the School of Engineering in the University of Seville, Spain. His main research interests are related to Supply Chain and Operations management. He has published more than 90 papers in international refereed journals such as Computers & Industrial Engineering, Computers & Operations Research, European Journal of Operational Research, IIE Transactions, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Systems Science, Journal of Heuristics, Journal of Materials and Processing Technology, Journal of the Operational Research Society, OMEGA, Operations Research Letters, OR Spectrum, and Production Planning & Control. He is or has been investigator in a number of international and national public- and private- funded projects. He currently serves as an Editor in Chief of the European Journal of Industrial Engineering, and Area Editor for the Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journals. He holds an Engineering and Doctor Engineering degree from the University of Seville.
