Nebil Buyurgan

Multiple‐buyer procurement auctions framework for humanitarian supply chain management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the inefficiency in resource allocation for disaster relief procurement operations. It presents a holistic and reconfigurable procurement auctions‐based framework which includes the announcement construction, bid construction and bid evaluation phases.Design/methodology/approach – The holistic framework is developed in a way that auctioneers and bidders compete amongst each other in multiple rounds of the procurement auction. Humanitarian organization in disaster locations are considered as auctioneers (buyers) and suppliers are considered as bidders.Findings – Unique system parameters (e.g. announcement options, priority of items, bidder strategies, etc.) are introduced to represent the disaster relief environment in a practical way. The framework is verified by simulation and optimization techniques using the system characteristics of the disaster relief environment as an input. Based on the parameters and their values, behavioural changes of auctioneers...

RFID in Healthcare: A Framework of Uses and Opportunities

With its potential and unique uses, healthcare is one of the major sectors where radio frequency identification (RFID) is being considered and adopted. Improving the healthcare supply chain, patient safety, and monitoring of critical processes are some of the key drivers that motivate healthcare industry participants to invest in this technology. Many forward-looking healthcare organizations have put the potential of RFID into practice and are realizing the benefits of it. This study examines these empirical applications and provides a framework of current RFID deployment in the healthcare industry and opportunities for continued deployment. This framework also presents a categorical analysis of the benefits that have been observed by the healthcare industry. In addition, major implementation challenges are discussed. The framework suggests asset management, inventory management, authenticity management, identity management, and process management are the broad areas in which RFID adoptions can be categorized.

An Online RFID Laboratory Learning Environment

Due to the increasing demand for RFID expertise and the existence of a knowledge gap between industry and academia in this domain, work has been stimulated to help spread understanding in this field and bridge the gap between theoretical examinations and industrial practices. Among the encouraged work, there is the Integrated Auto-ID Technology for Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Studies (I-ATMUS) project that involved developing an online learning environment for RFID technology with a remotely controllable laboratory system. Technological resources can now be accessed by learners through the Web technology to apply appropriate configurations to the system, conduct experiments using RFID technology, and perform statistical analysis on the acquired data. The developed educational tool was used by two sets of students, who showed improvements in their confidence, knowledge, and skills.

An auction‐based framework for resource allocation in disaster relief

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the inefficiency problems in procurement operations in disaster relief logistics which are mainly due to the lack of coordination among less organized suppliers and partnerships. Such problems lead to poor responsiveness and hinder timely procurement of required goods.Design/methodology/approach – An auction‐based framework for procurement of goods, which is suitable for a single coordinating platform in disaster relief logistics, is proposed. Integer programming formulations are used in auctioning operations. A simulation model that generates problem instances is used to evaluate and tune system‐level design parameters.Findings – Design parameters greatly affect the behaviour and responsiveness of the system and the performance of the auction‐based framework in different problem instances. Combinations of those parameters may allow suppliers with limited capacities to become more involved in the bidding process. In addition, the procurement shares of bidd...

Real‐time routing selection for automated guided vehicles in a flexible manufacturing system

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the development of an architecture for real‐time routing of automated guided vehicles (AGV) in a random flexible manufacturing system (FMS).Design/methodology/approach – AGV routing problem is modeled using an evolutionary algorithm‐based intelligent path planning model, which handles vehicle assignments to material handling requests and makes routing decisions with the objective of maximizing the system throughput. The architecture is implemented on a 3‐layer software environment in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed model.Findings – The proposed architecture, along with the evolutionary algorithm‐based routing model, is implemented in a simulated FMS environment using hypothetical production data. In order to benchmark the performance of the path planning algorithm, the same FMS model is run by traditional dispatching rules. The analysis shows that the proposed routing model outperforms the traditional dispatching rules for real‐time rou...

Medical Supply Logistics

This chapter focuses on medical supply logistics from the perspective of materials management and technology. It covers the structure of the medical supply chain and illustrates many of the issues that make the management of medical supply chains unique, complex, and challenging. Then, a review of inventory management practices and current research for medical supplies is provided. As an example, the management of blood supply is illustrated. Finally, key technological enablers such as electronic data exchange, automatic data capture technologies, and their importance within medical logistics are discussed. Future areas for research are suggested.

RFID Adoption in Healthcare and ROI Analysis

RFID is becoming one of the major enabling technologies being considered and adopted into healthcare logistics applications. In this chapter, the authors deliver an overview of the role of RFID in the healthcare industry and introduce some of the basics of sound business case development. To this end, samples of case studies prepared over the past 5 years are presented. In addition, an actual RFID implementation business case and its ROI analysis are included to demonstrate the benefits of the technology in greater detail.

An analysis of imperfect RFID visibility in a multi-echelon supply chain

This study investigates how imperfect inventory information provided by Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology can be used in inventory management. A simulation-based approach is utilised to understand the potential uses and impacts of imperfect RFID data in multi-echelon retail supply chains. The results reveal that when used as the primary decision-making tool, RFID could be a valuable technology even without perfect visibility. However, unforeseen trends and system behaviours are observed on the level of inventory record inaccuracy. When RFID is used to monitor the inventory as a supporting technology, the information provided can be used to trigger inventory correction activities.

A decision support tool for healthcare providers to evaluate readiness and impacts of adopting supply chain data standards

Healthcare providers are under increasing pressure to reduce waste, eliminate unnecessary costs and redundant efforts, thereby improving the quality and consistency of healthcare delivery. Lack of automation and the lack of use of global identifiers for products and locations, also known as supply chain data standards, are two critical factors that can help streamline providers operations and improve process efficiency. Despite widespread consensus among various stakeholders, healthcare providers lack a well-defined approach towards adopting and implementing data standards. Supply chain data standards can be defined as a set of product and location identifiers which are used in supply chain related processes and transactions. Healthcare providers willing to successfully adopt data standards in some or all of their operations need to invest in several process changes and technology installations or upgrades; however, they often struggle to justify returns on those investments and hence, find uncertain Return on Investment (ROI) as a critical barrier. In this article, we present a hierarchical comprehensive spreadsheet based decision support tool that helps potential healthcare providers to evaluate their readiness requirements and quantify the potential impacts of their decisions in terms of non-monetary performance measures, such as increased productivity, enhanced patient safety and reduction in errors resulting in decreased volume of transactions. This tool has undergone extensive testing with healthcare providers of different size, scope, and needs. We present numerical results showcased through practical examples in this article. The software is publicly available free of cost for download at http://cihl.uark.edu.

An analysis of the effect of inventory record inaccuracy in a two-echelon supply chain

This paper examines the effect of inventory record inaccuracy within the context of a two-echelon supply chain. The system consists of an external supplier, a distribution centre, and a retail level. Each location operates under an (R, Q) reorder point reorder quantity inventory control policy with backordering permitted. The model introduces count-based discrepancies into the inventory records and measures the effect on system performance at the locations and throughout the supply chain. A set of simulation experiments examines two fundamental methods to mitigate the effect of inaccurate inventory records: carrying extra inventory to protect against the errors and using cycle counting procedures to correct the records over time. In addition, the effect of learning through the use of cycle counting procedures and error reduction methods and the effect of non-compliance (not correcting records) within the system are explored. The results indicate that cycle counting can have significant positive effects within the entire supply chain. In addition, the experiments show that the learning effect has benefits both locally and throughout the supply chain. The results also show that non-compliance to the cycle counting procedure by locations within the chain can have significant detrimental effects on supply chain partners and overall supply chain performance.