A. Subash Babu

Supply chain flexibility: a state-of-the-art survey

Supply Chain Flexibility (SCF) is a complex, dynamic and multifaceted concept viewed from a strategic and customer perspective. In the present study, an elaborate literature review of SCF was carried out, which helped in encapsulating various research outcomes in a structured manner, wherein the available SCF publications were reviewed and salient features related to conceptual frameworks, empirical studies, field and case studies, modelling studies and Supply Chain (SC) performance measures, the assessment of SCF, etc., were brought out. The details presented in this paper would reveal several crucial issues for future research. This paper also recognises how several business practices such as lean SC, agile SC, responsive SC and resilient SC distinguish their real relationship to SCF. Lastly, several avenues for future work have been suggested, which will provide an impetus to strengthen the research in the field of SCF.

Business excellence through supply chain flexibility in Indian industries: an investigative study

Supply Chain Flexibility (SCF) has been a topic of interest for academicians and practitioners. It is evident from the published literature that this problem, poses considerable challenges to the various segments of the Supply Chain (SC). In order to be competitive, the Indian manufacturing industries have already started implementing flexibility in different segments of the SC by several means and ways. A survey was carried out among the Indian manufacturing organisations to learn about their experience and perceptions related to SCF. The issues of importance identified are the triggers (stimuli) which force an organisation to seek higher flexibility, the means (enablers) which facilitate the realisation of SCF and the hurdles (inhibitors) which hinder progress in SCF. The data collected clearly revealed that different organisations perceive SCF differently and also practice various policies. The data also analysed using ANOVA and Factor Analysis (FA) helped in establishing the various trends and perceptions that are in vogue. The details of the study, analysis and the results are presented in this paper.

Strategies for enhancing agility of make‐to‐order manufacturing systems

This paper relates to make‐to‐order (MTO) manufacturing environment. Initially, the various issues of concern and problems encountered in relation to typical MTO systems are presented to emphasize why agility is required in such systems. The need to have better performance measures is discussed. How some of the problems related to typical MTO systems were dealt with in the past is discussed, by highlighting the salient features of some selected contributions made towards enhancing agility in MTO systems. An outline of the system presently being developed by the author for concurrent and integrated management of MTO manufacturing organisations, which is conceived mainly as an agile management system for MTO environment, is also presented.

Perspectives, practices and future of supply chain flexibility

Supply Chain Flexibility (SCF) has become more necessary than ever as it offers strategic advantage. The published literature bears a good testimony to this fact and several authors have proposed different viewpoints on SCF. The interest in the philosophies and perspectives of SCF has been growing and organisations of the world have been taking a number of initiatives governed by various paradigms evolving around lean, agility, responsiveness, robustness, etc. At the moment, there are several views on SCF and other organisational innovations, which may perhaps confound a student of SCF. The purpose of this paper is to present a consolidated account of various views expressed by academicians and practitioners by bringing to the fore, various research options available in the area of SCF. The paper also addresses the relevance of various forces and the role of dynamics in managing supply chain flexibility.

Quality of customer service in supply chain system: a diagnostic study

Supply chain systems play very significant roles to improve the quality of customer service and therefore, derive considerable attention from managers of enterprises in pursuit of competitive excellence. Different strategies are used to improve customer service and different measures are also used to quantify this. A detailed diagnostic study was conducted in a large Indian company dealing with fast moving consumer goods. In this study, a new measure called Depot Service India (DSI) was used to measure the quality of customer service and using which various statistical analyses were carried out to study how the DSI values vary over time and among various depots, how these values are auto‐correlated, what factors influence the variations in DSI values and how various decisions at strategic, tactical and operational levels affect the performance of the system. The details of how the results obtained were used to evolve remedial measures to improve the quality of customer service in the supply chain system of this company are also discussed in this paper.

Towards TQM using kaizen process dynamics: a case study

A kaizen system was designed and installed in a large manufacturing organization as a part of a TQM exercise. Detailed studies were carried out by collecting extensive data over a period of 23 months, and by using statistical methods to understand the dynamics in the kaizen process. The kaizen process was found to be an auto regressive process, which leads to habit formation in making improvements. The process was observed to be influenced by seven controllable variables, which affect the quantity and quality of improvements. Reveals that implementation of kaizen as the first step in the TQM journey can lead to a self‐sustaining, controllable process of setting up a culture of continuous improvement.

Managing Supply Chain Flexibility using an integrated approach of classifying, structuring and impact assessment

Flexibility in the Supply Chain (SC) has emerged as a new strategic tool to enhance business excellence. The exploitation of flexibility is vital in designing, planning and controlling SC system to improve an organisations ability to recover from disruptions. There are various types of SCF, each type comes in various forms and each of which can be implemented in different ways and with different costs. The topic of Supply Chain Flexibility (SCF) has drawn the attention of the researchers and practitioners over a decade. However, in literature, there is no evidence of any study focused on interdependency among various types of SCF types. An attempt has therefore been made to identify and analyse relationships among the SCF types, to establish contextual relationships among them to identify the factors that are relevant to various SCF types and to evaluate the dynamics among them. The details of the study are reported in this paper.

Benchmarking Supply Chain Flexibility using Data Envelopment Analysis

Organisations have been facing several disturbing events, problems and changes affecting overall performance of their Supply Chains (SCs). To be competitive by quickly responding to disruptions, building enough flexibility in SCs is emerging as a new business strategy. However, it is very difficult to identify how much flexibility is required in different functions of the SC, as it depends on the nature and level of uncertainty faced by the process, facility or organization. In this paper, SCF is logically attributed to a business function synonymously with the efficiency of the corresponding business unit, wherein the leveraging factors are treated as the inputs and the benefits as the outputs. Here, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach is used as a benchmarking tool for deriving the advantage of optimisation in many ways.

Supply chain flexibility: a risk management approach

The variety of disturbances and risks in a supply chain (SC) made it more dynamic and unstable, and imposed a number of constraints achieving business excellence. An interruption if occurred at a SC partner may have impact on others and the influence may propagate across the chain. The propagated influence leads to inefficient processing and non-value adding activities across the chain. In this study, a hierarchical relationship model of SC stimuli (disruptions, problems, uncertainties or changes) has been developed evolving the relationship dynamics among them. The study also addresses how to reduce vulnerability of stimuli and their risks to SC by deploying flexibility in SC.

Evaluation of reconfigured manufacturing systems: an AHP framework

The market dynamics are undergoing changes almost continuously and new technologies are emerging which lead to new generation machines. The concept of RMS, although started at the machine level, has now spread to almost all the components of the manufacturing systems. Emerging technologies in the form of machine tool, material handling, tooling, automation etc., guide the reconfiguration exercise. A number of configurations are considered while making the change, guided either by local factors or in rare cases, by optimisation models. The modifications identified are put to use with the hope that everything would be fine and as expected. This approach is risk prone as the system may later encounter different scenarios, which were not considered earlier. Therefore, unless the alternative configurations are evaluated and compared to assess the pros and cons of each alternative under different situations, one may not reap the potential benefit of the concept like RMS. The study reported in this paper attempts to extend help in this direction.