Cloud manufacturing system for sheet metal processing

Abstract

Cloud computing is changing the way industries and enterprises run their businesses. Cloud manufacturing is emerging as an approach to transform the traditional manufacturing business model, while helping the manufacturer to align production efficiency with its business strategy, and creating intelligent factory networks that enable collaboration across the whole enterprise. Many production planning and control (PPC) problems are essentially optimisation problems, where the objective is to develop a plan that meets the demand at minimum cost or maximum profit. Because the underlying optimisation problem will vary in the different business and operation phases, it is important to think about optimisation in a dynamic mechanism and in a number of interlinked sub-problems at the same time. Cloud manufacturing has the potential to offer decision support as a service and medium of communication in PPC. To solve these problems and produce collaboration across the supply chain, this paper provides an overview of the state of the art in cloud manufacturing and presents a model of cloud-based production planning and production system for sheet metal processing.     

Supply Chain Strategies and International Tax Arbitrage

What motivates the geographic footprint of the supply chains that multinational firms (MNFs) deploy? Traditional research in the operations and supply chain management literature tends to recommend locations primarily based on differentials in production costs and the ramifications of physical distance ignoring the role of taxation. MNFs that strategically position parts of their supply chains in low‐tax locations can allocate the profits across the divisions to improve post‐tax profits. For the profit allocation to be defensible to tax authorities, the divisional operations must possess real decision authority and bear meaningful risks. Generally speaking, the greater the transfer of risk and control, the larger the allowable allocation of profit. These transfers may also create inefficiencies due to misalignment of business goals and attitudes toward risk. We model these trade‐offs in the context of placing in a low‐tax region a subsidiary that oversees product distribution (as a limited risk distributor commissionnaire, limited risk distributor, or fully fledged distributor). Our analysis demonstrates that the MNF's preferences regarding the operating structures are not necessarily an obvious ordering based on the amount of risk and decision authority transferred to the division in the low‐tax jurisdiction. We derive and analyze threshold values of the performance parameters that describe the main trade‐offs involved in selecting an operating structure. We find some of the optimal decisions to exhibit interesting non‐monotone behavior. For instance, profits can increase when the tax rate in the low‐tax jurisdiction increases. Numerical analysis shows that the Limited‐Risk Distributor structure is rarely optimal and quantifies when each alternative dominates it.     

Coordination in a Single‐Supplier,Multi‐Retailer Distribution System: Supplier‐Facilitated Transshipments

We consider supplier‐facilitated transshipments for achieving supply chain coordination in a single supplier, multi‐retailer distribution system with non‐cooperative retailers. The previous transshipment literature has focused on coordination through retailer‐negotiated transshipments and thus does not consider the supplier's decision‐making. In contrast, in this study, we assume the supplier is an active participant in the system and we seek to understand how the supplier can facilitate the implementation of coordinating transshipments. We study a two‐period model with wholesale orders at the start of the first period and preventive transshipments performed at the start of the second period. Inspired by a supplier‐facilitated transshipment scheme observed in practice, we assume the supplier implements transshipments through a bi‐directional adjustment contract. Under this contract, each retailer can either buy additional inventory from, or sell back excess inventory to, the supplier. We show that coordination can be achieved through carefully designed contracts with state‐dependent adjustment prices and a wholesale price menu. We demonstrate that the supplier's role in facilitating coordinating transshipments is critical. In addition, we use our understanding of the coordinating contract form to derive some simpler and easier‐to‐implement heuristic contracts. We use a numerical study to demonstrate the value, to the supplier, of using the coordinating adjustment and wholesale prices, and to evaluate the heuristics’ performance.     

How Sourcing of Interdependent Components Affects Quality in Automotive Supply Chains

In the automotive industry, many firms source key components from different suppliers, even though the components may function interdependently. In this study, we investigate how component level interdependence impacts quality performance and analyze how various operational factors moderate this relation. We synthesize information from several case studies to model the quality challenges faced by an automotive firm. For several sub‐assemblies that go into its products, the firm sourced key components from two different suppliers. The sub‐assemblies would fail whenever a component fails, but due to interdependent operations, failure of one component could cause the failure of the other. The firm found it challenging to improve the suppliers' quality performance as it was difficult to trace the failures to specific components. Our analysis reveals that – (i) the impact of interdependence is governed by the supply chain structure: reducing the interdependence between components improves quality when suppliers provide the components, but reducing interdependence worsens quality when the firm manufactures the entire sub‐assembly; and (ii) the relation between interdependence and quality performance is moderated by factors such as penalties, production costs, and interdependence costs. Additionally, we find that quality performance is lower when the firm outsources the components than when the firm manufactures the entire sub‐assembly. We identify coordinating mechanisms that leverage incentives and penalties to bridge the quality performance gap.     

Sustainable supply chain management and the transition towards a circular economy: Evidence and some applications

In the last decades, green and sustainable supply chain management practices have been developed, trying to integrate environmental concerns into organisations by reducing unintended negative consequences on the environment of production and consumption processes. In parallel to this, the circular economy discourse has been propagated in the industrial ecology literature and practice. Circular economy pushes the frontiers of environmental sustainability by emphasising the idea of transforming products in such a way that there are workable relationships between ecological systems and economic growth. Therefore, circular economy is not just concerned with the reduction of the use of the environment as a sink for residuals but rather with the creation of self-sustaining production systems in which materials are used over and over again.Through two case studies from different process industries (chemical and food), this paper compares the performances of traditional and circular production systems across a range of indicators. Direct, indirect and total lifecycle emissions, waste recovered, virgin resources use, as well as carbon maps (which provide a holistic visibility of the entire supply chain) are presented. The paper asserts that an integration of circular economy principles within sustainable supply chain management can provide clear advantages from an environmental point view. Emerging supply chain management challenges and market dynamics are also highlighted and discussed.     

Open innovation and quality management: the moderating role of interorganisational IT infrastructure and complementary learning styles

This study seeks to explain the influence of quality management on the relationship between open innovation and performance. We propose that, to contribute to open innovation performance, an organisation’s commitment to quality improvement must rely on the combination of its own resources and capabilities and its open innovation partners’ resources and capabilities. Specifically, we examine the moderating role of an interorganisational IT infrastructure and the complementarity of learning styles among an organisation committed to quality improvement and its supply network. Using data from 270 managers of European firms, our results show that the negative effects of quality management on open innovation performance can be overcome by complementing the organisation’s learning style with that of its open innovation partner, particularly, its supply network, and, most importantly, obtaining information technologies compatible with those of its supply network members.     

Many Faces of Security: Discursive Framing in Cross-border Natural Resource Governance in the Mekong River Commission

Abstract

In the past decade, security has emerged as a new discourse in water governance beyond transboundary conflicts and cooperation. This paper will examine how security is framed in the context of international river basin organizations (RBOs), key regional organizations in transboundary water governance operating in many international river basins around the world. As an example of cross-border governance, RBOs can promote joint cooperation and information sharing, and serve as a form to bring together diverse stakeholders. This paper focuses on the discursive construction of ‘security’ in a particular context of cross-border river basin governance in the Mekong River Basin. We ask: How is security framed in the discourse of RBOs? We examine how diverse actors frame security in the context of RBOs and at various scales and around certain management actions in a case study of the Mekong River Commission, a well-established RBO. Attention will be paid to the links between water security, food security, and energy security in the broader water and development discourse. We analyze what the findings mean for cross-border governance more broadly.     

自然资源经济学的难解之题——水资源价格与节约的冲突

日益短缺的水资源面临的价格与节约的冲突,成为自然资源经济学的一个难解之题：水资源严重短缺的趋势,需要通过价格调整其分配与消费,而作为公用事业产品的生活用水,价格的长期粘性不利于水资源节约。提出这个问题,意在提示人们共同探讨破解这一难题的方法。     

农村公共文化服务有效供给的现实困境与策略创新——基于社会资本理论的视角

作为政治社会学的一个重要概念,社会资本的理论构成了农村公共文化服务有效供给的重要资源,对提升当下我国农村公共文化服务的供给实效具有借鉴意义,信任社会资本能够提升农村民众对公共文化服务供给的价值认同,规范社会资本可以促进农村公共文化服务供给的制度化,而公民参与网络有助于扩大农村公共文化服务的融资渠道。然而,在当前社会转型期内,我国农村现代社会资本的分布还很不均衡,总体发育不够成熟,这其中,农村民众普遍社会信任的产生还面临许多困境,各级政府对农村公共文化服务供给的制度规范存在不足,同时,农村公民社会不发达,农村文化类民间组织发育不良,农村民众参与意识较为薄弱,这些都构成了当下制约农村公共文化服务有效供给的社会根源,因此,在推进农村公共文化服务有效供给的过程中,地方政府必须大力提升其现代社会资本存量,强化宣传教育,着力提升地方官员的公共服务能力与农村民众的认识水平,积极转变地方政府的供给模式,实现地方政府文化管理过程的善治转变,并积极完善供给机制,大力培育农村民间组织,实现农村公共文化服务资金来源的多元化。     

现代服务业供应链整合与上海国际贸易中心建设

在当今经济全球化背景下,供应链日益成为产业组织的一种主流生产模式,高端与专业性服务业的供应链整合尤为重要。服务企业能否形成以其为核心的供应链,关键取决于各自的供应链管理能力。通过考察上海商贸、金融、物流、计算机与信息服务业等涉及国际贸易中心建设的关键服务行业,在分析上海国际贸易中心建设中现代服务业供应链整合发展的现状与存在问题的基础上,提出上海增强服务业供应链整合能力的对策建议。