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Title: A MULTI-VIEW FRAMEWORK FOR DEFINING THE SERVICES SUPPLY CHAIN USING OBJECT ORIENTED METHODOLOGY.
Creator: Barnard, James, Mollaghasemi, Mansooreh, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Supply-chain management is the practice combining theory from logistics, operations management, production management and inventory control. Therefore, it is often associated exclusively with manufacturing or materials management industries. Application of supply-chain management to other industries often results in implementations that do not satisfy the needs of the involved enterprises. To improve the implementation of supply-chain solutions outside of the materials management and...
Show moreSupply-chain management is the practice combining theory from logistics, operations management, production management and inventory control. Therefore, it is often associated exclusively with manufacturing or materials management industries. Application of supply-chain management to other industries often results in implementations that do not satisfy the needs of the involved enterprises. To improve the implementation of supply-chain solutions outside of the materials management and manufacturing industries there is a need for industry specific standards. One industry sector in need of a standard is the services industry. The current problem facing the services sector is the inability to adapt current frameworks to the provisioning of a service. Provisioning a service translates into the supply-chain for the services industry since it influences the services supply and demand. A solution to the problem is development of a supply-chain standard specific to the provisioning of a service. Objectives of the research are to define comprehensively, a new services supply-chain model that is applicable to the United States government classification of a service and to ensure the scalability and integration capability of the model. To satisfy these objectives, it is necessary to understand the characteristics describing the services supply-chain process. The characteristics are the input into deriving the processes and terminology of the generalized services supply-chain. Terminology and processes are then used to create a supply-chain framework using input from the Supply-Chain Council's Supply-Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model. SCOR provides a foundation for describing the processes and defining the terminology in an already accepted format. A final verification of the model by industry experts insures conceptually that the framework is applicable to the current problem. This research developed a three-level framework similar in structure to the SCOR framework. Presentation of the framework is a specification that defines and sequences the processes for implementation. A detailed case study applies the model using the framework and the definition of a comprehensive supply-chain.
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Date Issued: 2006
Identifier: CFE0001485, ucf:47097
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001485

Title: OPTIMIZING THE GLOBAL PERFORMANCE OF BUILD-TO-ORDER SUPPLY CHAINS.
Creator: Shaalan, Tarek, Geiger, Christopher, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Build-to-order supply chains (BOSCs) have recently received increasing attention due to the shifting focus of manufacturing companies from mass production to mass customization. This shift has generated a growing need for efficient methods to design BOSCs. This research proposes an approach for BOSC design that simultaneously considers multiple performance measures at three stages of a BOSC – Tier I suppliers, the focal manufacturing company and Tier I customers (product delivery...
Show moreBuild-to-order supply chains (BOSCs) have recently received increasing attention due to the shifting focus of manufacturing companies from mass production to mass customization. This shift has generated a growing need for efficient methods to design BOSCs. This research proposes an approach for BOSC design that simultaneously considers multiple performance measures at three stages of a BOSC – Tier I suppliers, the focal manufacturing company and Tier I customers (product delivery couriers). We present a heuristic solution approach that constructs the best BOSC configuration through the selection of suppliers, manufacturing resources at the focal company and delivery couriers. The resulting configuration is the one that yields the best global performance relative to five deterministic performance measures simultaneously, some of which are nonlinear. We compare the heuristic results to those from an exact method, and the results show that the proposed approach yields BOSC configurations with near-optimal performance. The absolute deviation in mean performance across all experiments is consistently less than 4%, with a variance less than 0.5%. We propose a second heuristic approach for the stochastic BOSC environment. Compared to the deterministic BOSC performance, experimental results show that optimizing BOSC performance according to stochastic local performance measures can yield a significantly different supply chain configuration. Local optimization means optimizing according to one performance measure independently of the other four. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we test the impact of local performance variability on the global performance of the BOSC. Experimental results show that, as variability of the local performance increases, the mean global performance decreases, while variation in the global performance increases at steeper levels.
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Date Issued: 2006
Identifier: CFE0001411, ucf:47063
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001411

Title: FRAMEWORK FOR COST MODELING A SUPPLY CHAIN.
Creator: Yousef, Nabeel, Sepulveda, Jose, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Researchers are interested in value chain analysis to identify the different opportunities for cost savings. The literature have been narrow in scope and addressed specific problems; however none has addressed the need for a general framework that can be used as a standard template in the supply chain cost management and optimization, though Dekker and Goor (2000) said that the goal was to develop a model that would allow direct comparison of specific activities between firms, such as...
Show moreResearchers are interested in value chain analysis to identify the different opportunities for cost savings. The literature have been narrow in scope and addressed specific problems; however none has addressed the need for a general framework that can be used as a standard template in the supply chain cost management and optimization, though Dekker and Goor (2000) said that the goal was to develop a model that would allow direct comparison of specific activities between firms, such as warehousing activities costs. There was no indication in the literature of a cost model that can identify all costs and cost drivers through the supply chain. Some firms built models to analyze the effect of changes in activities but only with limited activities such as logistics. The purpose of this research is to create a general framework that can express the cost data for the partners of the supply chain in similar terms. The framework will layout the common activities identified within the firm and the relationship of these activities between the partners of the supply chain, and the framework will identify the effect of changes in activities on other partners within the supply chain. Cost information will help in making decisions about pricing, outsourcing, capital expenditures, and operational efficiency. The framework will be able to track cost through the chain, which will improve the flexibility of the supply chain to respond to rapidly changing technology. The framework will help in developing product strategy paradigms that encompass the dynamics of the market, in particular with respect to the technology adoption lifecycle.
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Date Issued: 2006
Identifier: CFE0001038, ucf:46821
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001038

Title: Inventory Management Problem for Cold Items with Environmental and Financial Considerations.
Creator: Hajiaghabozorgi, Ali, Pazour, Jennifer, Karwowski, Waldemar, Zheng, Qipeng, Nazzal, Dima, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: The overarching theme of this dissertation is analytically analyzing the cold supply chain from a financial and environmental perspective. Specifically, we develop inventory policy models in the cold supply chain that consider holding and transportation unit capacities. The models provide insights for the decision maker on the tradeoff between setting order quantities based on the cost or the emission function.In Chapter 2, we review two major bodies of literature: 1) supply chain design, and...
Show moreThe overarching theme of this dissertation is analytically analyzing the cold supply chain from a financial and environmental perspective. Specifically, we develop inventory policy models in the cold supply chain that consider holding and transportation unit capacities. The models provide insights for the decision maker on the tradeoff between setting order quantities based on the cost or the emission function.In Chapter 2, we review two major bodies of literature: 1) supply chain design, and 2) sustainability in supply chain design. We benefit from this literature review to map the current body of research on traditional supply chain for further comparison with the cold supply chain. Sustainability in supply chain network design is often measured by the carbon footprint; other sustainability metrics such as water footprint and sustainable energy are not included. Literature on supply chain design can be further broken down into its three major components: 1) facility location/allocation, 2) inventory management, and 3) facility location/allocation combined with inventory management. In Chapter 3, we study and present an overview of the cold chain. In accordance to the three levels of supply chain management decision making, the study is divided into the following three sections: (1) strategic level, (2) tactical level, and (3) operational level. Specifically, we capture how these decisions will impact the three main components of sustainability: economic, environmental, and social components. In addition, we explain how these components are different in the cold chain, in comparison to the traditional supply chain, and why such unique differences are worth studying. The intent of this chapter is to provide an overview of cold chains and to identify open areas for research. Examples from industrial cases, in addition to data and information from white papers, reports and research articles are provided.In Chapter 4, the cold item inventory problem is formulated as a single-period model that considers both financial and emissions functions. A new formulation for holding and transportation cost and emission is proposed by considering unit capacity for holding and transportation. This model applies to cold items that need to be stored at a certain, non-ambient temperature. Holding cold items in a warehouse is usually done by dividing the warehouse into a set of cold freezer units inside rather than refrigerating the entire warehouse. The advantage of such a design is that individual freezer units can be turned off to save cost and energy, when they are not needed. As a result, there is a fixed (setup) cost for holding a group of items, which results in a step function to represent the fixed cost of turning on the freezer units, in addition to the variable cost of holding items based on the number of units held in inventory. Three main goals of studying this problem are: 1) deriving the mathematical structure and modeling the holding and transportation costs and environmental functions in cold chains, 2) proposing exact solution procedures to solve the math models, and 3) analyzing the tradeoffs involved in making inventory decisions based on minimizing emissions vs. minimizing cost in cold chains.This problem demonstrates the tradeoff between the cost and the emission functions in an important supply chain decision. Also, the analytical models and solution approaches provide the decision maker with analytical tools for making better decisions.In Chapter 5, we expand the developed model from Chapter 4 to include multiple types of products. We consider a group of products that share capacities as a family of products. According to the problem formulation, we have two types of decision variables: (1) determining if a product is a member of a family or not, and (2) how much to order and how frequently to order for products within each family. We propose a solution procedure in accordance with the decision variable types: (1) a procedure for grouping (partitioning) the products into different families, and (2) a procedure to solve the inventory problem for each family. A set of experiments are designed to answer a number of research questions, and brings more understandings of the developed models and solutions algorithms.Finally, the conclusions of this dissertation and suggestions for future research topics are presented in Chapter 6.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: CFE0005501, ucf:50365
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005501

Title: A METHODOLOGY FOR MINIMIZING THE OSCILLATIONS IN SUPPLY CHAINS USING SYSTEM DYNAMICS AND GENETIC ALGORITHMS.
Creator: LAKKOJU, RAMAMOORTHY, RABELO, LUIS, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Supply Chain Management (SCM) is a critically significant strategy that enterprises depend on to meet challenges that they face because of highly competitive and dynamic business environments of today. Supply chain management involves the entire network of processes from procurement of raw materials/services/technologies to manufacturing or servicing intermediate products/services to converting them into final products or services and then distributing and retailing them till they reach final...
Show moreSupply Chain Management (SCM) is a critically significant strategy that enterprises depend on to meet challenges that they face because of highly competitive and dynamic business environments of today. Supply chain management involves the entire network of processes from procurement of raw materials/services/technologies to manufacturing or servicing intermediate products/services to converting them into final products or services and then distributing and retailing them till they reach final customers. A supply chain network by nature is a large and complex, engineering and management system. Oscillations occurring in a supply chain because of internal and/or external influences and measures to be taken to mitigate/minimize those oscillations are a core concern in managing the supply chain and driving an organization towards a competitive advantage. The objective of this thesis is to develop a methodology to minimize the oscillations occurring in a supply chain by making use of the techniques of System Dynamics (SD) and Genetic Algorithms (GAs). System dynamics is a very efficient tool to model large and complex systems in order to understand their complex, non-linear dynamic behavior. GAs are stochastic search algorithms, based on the mechanics of natural selection and natural genetics, used to search complex and non-linear search spaces where traditional techniques may be unsuitable.
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Date Issued: 2005
Identifier: CFE0000683, ucf:46489
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000683

Title: AN AUTOMATED METHODOLOGY FOR A COMPREHENSIVE DEFINITION OF THE SUPPLY CHAIN USING GENERIC ONTOLOGICAL COMPONENTS.
Creator: Fayez, Mohamed, Mollaghasemi, Mansooreh, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Today, worldwide business communities are in the era of the Supply Chains. A Supply Chain is a collection of several independent enterprises that partner together to achieve specific goals. These enterprises may plan, source, produce, deliver, or transport materials to satisfy an immediate or projected market demand, and may provide the after sales support, warranty services, and returns. Each enterprise in the Supply Chain has roles and elements. The roles include supplier, customer, or...
Show moreToday, worldwide business communities are in the era of the Supply Chains. A Supply Chain is a collection of several independent enterprises that partner together to achieve specific goals. These enterprises may plan, source, produce, deliver, or transport materials to satisfy an immediate or projected market demand, and may provide the after sales support, warranty services, and returns. Each enterprise in the Supply Chain has roles and elements. The roles include supplier, customer, or carrier and the elements include functional units, processes, information, information resources, materials, objects, decisions, practices, and performance measures. Each enterprise, individually, manages these elements in addition to their flows, their interdependencies, and their complex interactions. Since a Supply Chain brings several enterprises together to complement each other to achieve a unified goal, the elements in each enterprise have to complement each other and have to be managed together as one unit to achieve the unified goal efficiently. Moreover, since there are a large number of elements to be defined and managed in a single enterprise, then the number of elements to be defined and managed when considering the whole Supply Chain is massive. The supply chain community is using the Supply Chain Operations Reference model (SCOR model) to define their supply chains. However, the SCOR model methodology is limited in defining the supply chain. The SCOR model defines the supply chain in terms of processes, performance metrics, and best practices. In fact, the supply chain community, SCOR users in particular, exerts massive effort to render an adequate supply chain definition that includes the other elements besides the elements covered in the SCOR model. Also, the SCOR model is delivered to the user in a document, which puts a tremendous burden on the user to use the model and makes it difficult to share the definition within the enterprise or across the supply chain. This research is directed towards overcoming the limitations and shortcomings of the current supply chain definition methodology. This research proposes a methodology and a tool that will enable an automated and comprehensive definition of the Supply Chain at any level of details. The proposed comprehensive definition methodology captures all the constituent parts of the Supply Chain at four different levels which are, the supply chain level, the enterprise level, the elements level, and the interaction level. At the Supply Chain level, the various enterprises that constitute the supply chain are defined. At the enterprise level, the enterprise elements are identified. At the enterprises' elements level, each element in the enterprise is explicitly defined. At the interaction level, the flows, interdependence, and interactions that exist between and within the other three levels are identified and defined. The methodology utilized several modeling techniques to generate generic explicit views and models that represents the four levels. The developed views and models were transformed to a series of questions and answers, where the questions correspond to what a view provides and the answers are the knowledge captured and generated from the view. The questions and answers were integrated to render a generic multi-view of the supply chain. The methodology and the multi-view were implemented in an ontology-based tool. The ontology includes sets of generic supply chain ontological components that represent the supply chain elements and a set of automated procedures that can be utilized to define a specific supply chain. A specific supply chain can be defined by re-using the generic components and customizing them to the supply chain specifics. The ontology-based tool was developed to function in the supply chain dynamic, information intensive, geographically dispersed, and heterogeneous environment. To that end, the tool was developed to be generic, sharable, automated, customizable, extensible, and scalable.
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Date Issued: 2005
Identifier: CFE0000399, ucf:46324
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000399

Title: VALUE MAPPING FRAMEWORK INVOLVING STAKEHOLDERS FOR SUPPLY CHAIN IMPROVEMENT WHEN IMPLEMENTING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS.
Creator: Moore, Karla, Rabelo, Luis, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Successful Supply Chain Management (SCM) depends on how well an organization performs internal and external communications with trading partners, executes the logistics component, and understands/monitors related costs of conducting its business. The use of information technology (IT) is considered a prerequisite for the effective control of today's complex supply chains. Increased communication technology has redefined how businesses work together, raised customer expectations, and...
Show moreSuccessful Supply Chain Management (SCM) depends on how well an organization performs internal and external communications with trading partners, executes the logistics component, and understands/monitors related costs of conducting its business. The use of information technology (IT) is considered a prerequisite for the effective control of today's complex supply chains. Increased communication technology has redefined how businesses work together, raised customer expectations, and placed new demands on supply chain performance. IT components with proven and rapid return-on-investment are favored to support critical supply chain processes such as leaner manufacturing processes, consumer-driven supply chains, and customer responsiveness. The use of IT in the digital era has become critical and it is treated as a major competitive tool for success. Complex and comprehensive IT infrastructures support the firm's communications network, databases, and operating systems. Information technology facilitates the creation of value. However, the creation of value is defined by the different groups of stakeholders. Therefore, stakeholders must be integrated into this process of change management that uses IT as the enabler. Supply chains are due to change when higher levels of performance and/or adaptation are required as mandated by changes in the business structure and/or benchmarking and/or regulations. One of the major problems for any supply chain executive is to understand and manage these changes. These changes usually require the implementation of an IT project. Therefore, the successful design, execution, and completion of these IT projects are important for the supply chain. SCM is now a strategic function addressed at the highest levels of the organization in concert with multiple stakeholders on both the supplier and customer side of the table. The aim of this dissertation is to develop a value mapping framework involving stakeholders to improve supply chain performance when implementing IT projects. The framework has components that help define the supply chain, measure the size of the issues, identify necessary changes in the metrics to improve performance, measure the organizational consequences of these changes, and develop and follow a plan to implement IT projects to achieve the new goals of performance. Through this new framework, these IT projects will be able to bring the supply chain from a current state "As is" to a future state "To be"; capturing the existing and desired states of the proposed changes which are aligned with the objectives and goals of the organization. Therefore, the IT project can be designed, executed, and completed. One unique component of this framework is the inclusion of the stakeholders at different stages. This framework identifies the group of stakeholders to be taken into consideration in order to define the future "To be" state. In addition, the framework identifies the value creation of the "To be" system as seen by the stakeholders.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: CFE0002108, ucf:47541
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002108

Title: Three essays on the marketing strategies of a durable goods manufacturer.
Creator: Chau, Ngan, Desiraju, Ramarao, Krishnamoorthy, Anand, Joshi, Amit, Chintagunta, Pradeep, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: When purchasing durable goods, consumers not only pay for current but also future consumption; consequently, forward looking behavior is an important consideration in durable goods markets. For example, anticipating that prices will go down in the future, consumers may delay the purchase today; such behavior has a significant impact on the firm's marketing strategies. This dissertation investigates the impact of durability on two marketing strategies: new product introductions and supply...
Show moreWhen purchasing durable goods, consumers not only pay for current but also future consumption; consequently, forward looking behavior is an important consideration in durable goods markets. For example, anticipating that prices will go down in the future, consumers may delay the purchase today; such behavior has a significant impact on the firm's marketing strategies. This dissertation investigates the impact of durability on two marketing strategies: new product introductions and supply chain design. The first part of this dissertation (Chapter 3) examines a durable goods manufacturer's new product introduction strategy under different market environments where network effects and product compatibility are important. More specifically, this part explores the incentives of a firm to use either a replacement strategy or a skipping strategy---in the former, the firm commercializes the existing technology, while in the latter, it does not; in either case, an improved technology will be available in the future and the firm will introduce a new product at that time. Using a two-period analytical model with network effects, the analysis shows how the level of improvement in the new product, along with the type of compatibility between the products, interacts with network strength to determine the manufacturer's optimal strategy. Under gradual new product improvement, there is a strict preference for replacement. In contrast, under rapid new product improvement, that preference only holds in markets with relatively high levels of the network strength; at lower levels of the network strength, skipping is preferred; interestingly, for moderate values of the network strength, the level of product improvement affects the manufacturer's optimal choice differently under varying types of compatibility.The second part of this dissertation (Chapters 4 and 5) focuses on the supply chain design decisions of a durable goods manufacturer who is a sole supplier of an essential proprietary component for making the end product. Three different supply chain structures are considered. In the first, the manufacturer operates as a ``component supplier'' and sells the component to a downstream firm who then makes the end product. In the second structure, the manufacturer produces the end product using its component but does not make that component available to any other firms; here, the manufacturer operates as a ``sole entrant''. Finally, the manufacturer can operate as a ``dual distributor'' who not only makes the end product using its own component, but sells the component to a downstream firm who then competes against the manufacturer in the end product market.The extant literature on the optimal choice among the above supply chain structures has focused mainly on static settings in a framework of price competition. By contrast, researchers predominantly use quantity competition to examine durable goods markets in dynamic (i.e., multiple time period) settings. Moreover, the literature notes diversity in optimal firm behavior under the two types of (i.e., price and quantity) competition. Therefore, to transition from supply chain design in a static setting to a more dynamic one where consumers are forward-looking, this part utilizes Chapter 4 to analyze the manufacturer's choice using quantity competition in a static setting. This analysis (in Chapter 4) identifies precisely the shift in the manufacturer's choice of supply chain structure when moving from price competition to a quantity competition framework. With that analysis as a benchmark, the next chapter focuses on the manufacturer's choice in a dynamic setting. More specifically, Chapter 5 investigates the impact of durability on the optimality of the supply chain structures identified above. Using a two period setting, the analysis explores how the manufacturer's preference for different supply chain structures is modified. The findings reveal that, e.g., when durability is taken into account, the manufacturer's preference for the sole entrant role goes up, while the preference for the component supplier role goes down. Further, under certain conditions, the manufacturer may opt to be a dual distributor in the first period and then choose to become only a component supplier in the second period. The underlying rationale for such shifts in preference is directly linked to durability, which creates future competition and substantially reduces the manufacturer's profitability in the long run. Interestingly, this negative impact varies across different supply chain structures.Overall, this dissertation contributes to the current literature on durable goods and enhances our understanding of the impact of durability on the optimality of distinct marketing strategies, and provides insights that are valuable to both academics and managers.
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Date Issued: 2012
Identifier: CFE0004364, ucf:49428
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004364

Title: AUTOMATIC GENERATION OF SUPPLY CHAIN SIMULATION MODELS FROM SCOR BASED ONTOLOGIES.
Creator: Cope, Dayana, Sepulveda, Jose, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: In today's economy of global markets, supply chain networks, supplier/customer relationship management and intense competition; decision makers are faced with a need to perform decision making using tools that do not accommodate the nature of the changing market. This research focuses on developing a methodology that addresses this need. The developed methodology provides supply chain decision makers with a tool to perform efficient decision making in stochastic, dynamic and distributed...
Show moreIn today's economy of global markets, supply chain networks, supplier/customer relationship management and intense competition; decision makers are faced with a need to perform decision making using tools that do not accommodate the nature of the changing market. This research focuses on developing a methodology that addresses this need. The developed methodology provides supply chain decision makers with a tool to perform efficient decision making in stochastic, dynamic and distributed supply chain environments. The integrated methodology allows for informed decision making in a fast, sharable and easy to use format. The methodology was implemented by developing a stand alone tool that allows users to define a supply chain simulation model using SCOR based ontologies. The ontology includes the supply chain knowledge and the knowledge required to build a simulation model of the supply chain system. A simulation model is generated automatically from the ontology to provide the flexibility to model at various levels of details changing the model structure on the fly. The methodology implementation is demonstrated and evaluated through a retail oriented case study. When comparing the implementation using the developed methodology vs. a "traditional" simulation methodology approach, a significant reduction in definition and execution time was observed.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: CFE0002009, ucf:47625
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002009

Title: MULTIOBJECTIVE COORDINATION MODELS FOR MAINTENANCE AND SERVICE PARTS INVENTORY PLANNING AND CONTROL.
Creator: Martinez, Oscar, Geiger, Christopher, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: In many equipment-intensive organizations in the manufacturing, service and particularly the defense sectors, service parts inventories constitute a significant source of tactical and operational costs and consume a significant portion of capital investment. For instance, the Defense Logistics Agency manages about 4 million consumable service parts and provides about 93% of all consumable service parts used by the military services. These items required about US$1.9 billion over the fiscal...
Show moreIn many equipment-intensive organizations in the manufacturing, service and particularly the defense sectors, service parts inventories constitute a significant source of tactical and operational costs and consume a significant portion of capital investment. For instance, the Defense Logistics Agency manages about 4 million consumable service parts and provides about 93% of all consumable service parts used by the military services. These items required about US$1.9 billion over the fiscal years 1999-2002. During the same time, the US General Accountability Office discovered that, in the United States Navy, there were about 3.7 billion ship and submarine parts that were not needed. The Federal Aviation Administration says that 26 million aircraft parts are changed each year. In 2002, the holding cost of service parts for the aviation industry was estimated to be US$50 billion. The US Army Institute of Land Warfare reports that, at the beginning of the 2003 fiscal year, prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom the aviation service parts alone was in excess of US$1 billion. This situation makes the management of these items a very critical tactical and strategic issue that is worthy of further study. The key challenge is to maintain high equipment availability with low service cost (e.g., holding, warehousing, transportation, technicians, overhead, etc.). For instance, despite reporting US$10.5 billion in appropriations spent on purchasing service parts in 2000, the United States Air Force (USAF) continues to report shortages of service parts. The USAF estimates that, if the investment on service parts decreases to about US$5.3 billion, weapons systems availability would range from 73 to 100 percent. Thus, better management of service parts inventories should create opportunities for cost savings caused by the efficient management of these inventories. Unfortunately, service parts belong to a class of inventory that continually makes them difficult to manage. Moreover, it can be said that the general function of service parts inventories is to support maintenance actions; therefore, service parts inventory policies are highly related to the resident maintenance policies. However, the interrelationship between service parts inventory management and maintenance policies is often overlooked, both in practice and in the academic literature, when it comes to optimizing maintenance and service parts inventory policies. Hence, there exists a great divide between maintenance and service parts inventory theory and practice. This research investigation specifically considers the aspect of joint maintenance and service part inventory optimization. We decompose the joint maintenance and service part inventory optimization problem into the supplier's problem and the customer's problem. Long-run expected cost functions for each problem that include the most common maintenance cost parameters and service parts inventory cost parameters are presented. Computational experiments are conducted for a single-supplier two-echelon service parts supply chain configuration varying the number of customers in the network. Lateral transshipments (LTs) of service parts between customers are not allowed. For this configuration, we optimize the cost functions using a traditional, or decoupled, approach, where each supply chain entity optimizes its cost individually, and a joint approach, where the cost objectives of both the supplier and customers are optimized simultaneously. We show that the multiple objective optimization approach outperforms the traditional decoupled optimization approach by generating lower system-wide supply chain network costs. The model formulations are extended by relaxing the assumption of no LTs between customers in the supply chain network. Similar to those for the no LTs configuration, the results for the LTs configuration show that the multiobjective optimization outperforms the decoupled optimization in terms of system-wide cost. Hence, it is economically beneficial to jointly consider all parties within the supply network. Further, we compare the model configurations – LTs versus no LTs, and we show that using LTs improves the overall savings of the system. It is observed that the improvement is mostly derived from reduced shortage costs since the equipment downtime is reduced due to the proximity of the supply. The models and results of this research have significant practical implications as they can be used to assist decision-makers to determine when and where to pre-position parts inventories to maximize equipment availability. Furthermore, these models can assist in the preparation of the terms of long-term service agreements and maintenance contracts between original equipment manufacturers and their customers (i.e., equipment owners and/or operators), including determining the equitable allocation of all system-wide cost savings under the agreement.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: CFE0002459, ucf:47723
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002459

Title: ACHIEVING COST-EFFECTIVE SUPPLY CHAIN AGILITY FOR THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY.
Creator: Jeffery, Mariah, Butler, Renee, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Supply chain agility has been receiving a lot of attention in recent literature as a way for organizations to become more responsive to change and improve customer service levels. However, agility is typically dealt with qualitatively, and organizations are usually unsure of the steps to take to improve their agility and the customer service level to target. This research studies supply chain agility based on a case study of Intel Corporation, a large semiconductor manufacturer. Here, agility...
Show moreSupply chain agility has been receiving a lot of attention in recent literature as a way for organizations to become more responsive to change and improve customer service levels. However, agility is typically dealt with qualitatively, and organizations are usually unsure of the steps to take to improve their agility and the customer service level to target. This research studies supply chain agility based on a case study of Intel Corporation, a large semiconductor manufacturer. Here, agility is defined as the ability to satisfy customer demands by reacting effectively to changes in market stimuli. Reacting effectively does not mean reacting to every change in supply or demand. Doing so means increasing supply chain variability unnecessarily, which is amplified by the bullwhip effect. The essence of supply chain agility is determining the degree to which variability should be managed through artificial means such as safety stock, and appropriate triggers for changing production levels and inventory targets. The purpose of this research is to examine factors that influence supply chain agility and identify a cost-effective plan for achieving it. The first phase addresses the problem of identifying target inventory and customer service levels based on regression analysis of historical data and financial analysis of inventory holding costs and stock-out costs. The impact of three factors (forecast error, order lead-time, and demand variability) on the relationship between inventory and customer service level is also examined. The second phase of the research evaluates strategies for production and inventory control with the goal of finding the appropriate trade-off between minimizing cost (of holding inventory and stock-outs) and minimizing variability. Control policies based on the Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) control chart with control limits on demand forecasts are proposed to detect when tighter control of processes is necessary. A Monte Carlo supply chain simulation is used to evaluate the performance of these policies under various levels of forecast error and demand variability. Results indicate that several control chart-based policies outperform Intel's current planning policy in terms of cost without significantly increasing variability. The selection of the appropriate policy must be based on the decision-makers' desire to minimize cost compared to the desire to minimize variability, as each policy results in a trade-off between these two objectives.
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Date Issued: 2005
Identifier: CFE0000853, ucf:46670
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000853

Title: A METHODOLOGY TO STABILIZE THE SUPPLY CHAIN.
Creator: Sarmiento, Alfonso, Rabelo, Luis, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: In todayÃ‚Â's world, supply chains are facing market dynamics dominated by strong global competition, high labor costs, shorter product life cycles, and environmental regulations. Supply chains have evolved to keep pace with the rapid growth in these business dynamics, becoming longer and more complex. As a result, supply chains are systems with a great number of network connections among their multiple components. The interactions of the network components with respect...
Show moreIn todayÃ‚Â's world, supply chains are facing market dynamics dominated by strong global competition, high labor costs, shorter product life cycles, and environmental regulations. Supply chains have evolved to keep pace with the rapid growth in these business dynamics, becoming longer and more complex. As a result, supply chains are systems with a great number of network connections among their multiple components. The interactions of the network components with respect to each other and the environment cause these systems to behave in a highly nonlinear dynamic manner. Ripple effects that have a huge, negative impact on the behavior of the supply chain (SC) are called instabilities. They can produce oscillations in demand forecasts, inventory levels, and employment rates and, cause unpredictability in revenues and profits. Instabilities amplify risk, raise the cost of capital, and lower profits. To reduce these negative impacts, modern enterprise managers must be able to change policies and plans quickly when those consequences can be detrimental. This research proposes the development of a methodology that, based on the concepts of asymptotic stability and accumulated deviations from equilibrium (ADE) convergence, can be used to stabilize a great variety of supply chains at the aggregate levels of decision making that correspond to strategic and tactical decision levels. The general applicability and simplicity of this method make it an effective tool for practitioners specializing in the stability analysis of systems with complex dynamics, especially those with oscillatory behavior. This methodology captures the dynamics of the supply chain by using system dynamics (SD) modeling. SD was the chosen technique because it can capture the complex relationships, feedback processes, and multiple time delays that are typical of systems in which oscillations are present. If the behavior of the supply chain shows instability patterns, such as ripple effects, the methodology solves an optimization problem to find a stabilization policy to remove instability or minimize its impact. The policy optimization problem relies upon a theorem which states that ADE convergence of a particular state variable of the system, such as inventory, implies asymptotic stability for that variable. The stabilization based on the ADE requires neither linearization of the system nor direct knowledge of the internal structure of the model. Moreover, the ADE concept can be incorporated easily in any SD modeling language. The optimization algorithm combines the advantage of particle swarm optimization (PSO) to determine good regions of the search space with the advantage of local optimization to quickly find the optimal point within those regions. The local search uses a Powell hill-climbing (PHC) algorithm as an improved procedure to the solution obtained from the PSO algorithm, which assures a fast convergence of the ADE. The experiments showed that solutions generated by this hybrid optimization algorithm were robust. A framework built on the premises of this methodology can contribute to the analysis of planning strategies to design robust supply chains. These improved supply chains can then effectively cope with significant changes and disturbances, providing companies with the corresponding cost savings.
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Date Issued: 2010
Identifier: CFE0002986, ucf:47977
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002986

Title: A Methodology for Data-Driven Decision-Making in Last Mile Delivery Operations.
Creator: Gutierrez Franco, Edgar, Rabelo, Luis, Karwowski, Waldemar, Zheng, Qipeng, Sarmiento, Alfonso, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Across all industries, from manufacturing to services, decision-makers must deal day to day with the outcomes from past and current decisions that affect their business. Last-mile delivery is the term used in supply chain management to describe the movement of goods from a hub to final destinations. This research proposes a methodology that supports decision making for the execution of last-mile delivery operations in a supply chain. This methodology offers diverse, hybrid, and complementary...
Show moreAcross all industries, from manufacturing to services, decision-makers must deal day to day with the outcomes from past and current decisions that affect their business. Last-mile delivery is the term used in supply chain management to describe the movement of goods from a hub to final destinations. This research proposes a methodology that supports decision making for the execution of last-mile delivery operations in a supply chain. This methodology offers diverse, hybrid, and complementary techniques (e.g., optimization, simulation, machine learning, and geographic information systems) to understand last-mile delivery operations through data-driven decision-making. The hybrid modeling might create better warning systems and support the delivery stage in a supply chain. The methodology proposes self-learning procedures to iteratively test and adjust the gaps between the expected and real performance. This methodology supports the process of making effective decisions promptly, optimization, simulation, and machine learning models are used to support execution processes and adjust plans according to changes in conditions, circumstances, and critical factors. This research is applied in two case studies. The first one is in maritime logistics, which discusses the decision process to find the type of vessels and routes to deliver petroleum from ships to villages. The second is in city logistics, where a network of stakeholders during the city distribution process is analyzed, showing the potential benefits of this methodology, especially in metropolitan areas. Potential applications of this system will leverage growing technological trends (e.g., machine learning in supply chain management and logistics, internet of things). The main research impact is the design and implementation of a methodology, which can support real-time decisions and adjust last-mile operations depending on the circumstances. The methodology allows taking decisions under conditions of stakeholder behavior patterns like vehicle drivers, customers, locations, and traffic. As the main benefit is the possibility to predict future scenarios and plan strategies for the most likely situations in last-mile delivery. This will help determine and support the accurate calculation of performance indicators. The research brings a unified methodology, where different solution approaches can be used in a synchronized form, which allows researches and other interested people to see the connection between techniques. With this research, it was possible to bring advanced technologies in routing practices and algorithms to decrease operating cost and leverage the use of offline and online information, thanks to connected sensors to support decisions.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: CFE0007645, ucf:52505
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007645

Title: Commitment and Credibility in FDI.
Creator: Sullivan, Kathleen, Hamann, Kerstin, Edwards, Barry, Boutton, Andrew, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: How can firms in foreign direct investment (FDI) best protect their assets from host government contract beach? FDI is the largest and most stable form of external financing to less developed countries (LDCs). It increases job growth, technological development, and efficiency in the host country, subsequently increasing economic development. Companies prefer to invest in countries that are less prone to contract breach. I propose that credibility of commitments can help explain variation in...
Show moreHow can firms in foreign direct investment (FDI) best protect their assets from host government contract beach? FDI is the largest and most stable form of external financing to less developed countries (LDCs). It increases job growth, technological development, and efficiency in the host country, subsequently increasing economic development. Companies prefer to invest in countries that are less prone to contract breach. I propose that credibility of commitments can help explain variation in contract breach. I propose that firms are most likely to avoid contract breach when they are involved in supply chains and when the host country has a preferential trade agreement (PTA).I measure this relationship using a difference of means test and logistic regression. Using data from 1992-2008 from the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), I find that on average, the least amount of cases filed involved supply chains and PTAs. Only 4% of cases involved supply chains and PTAs, suggesting a protective force in FDI. The interaction between supply chains and PTAs has a significantly positive effect on investors winning their cases in the ICSID. My results suggest that in the event of a contract breach, my interaction variable of membership in supply chains and PTA's help investors protect their assets. The implications of these findings are twofold. To safeguard their FDI, firms can ensure better protection from contract breach through supply chains. Furthermore, host countries can attract more FDI from PTAs. For future research, I suggest case study analysis as well as interviews with representatives from foreign firms that have dealt with contract breach.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: CFE0007866, ucf:52795
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007866

Title: The Effects of Risk and Trust on the Achievement of Sustainable Competitive Advantage from B2B E-Commerce Trading Relationships.
Creator: Hampton, Clark, Sutton, Steven, Roberts, Robin, Arnold, Vicky, Khazanchi, Deepak, Benford, Tanya, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This dissertation consists of three interrelated studies focusing on the use of business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce (e-commerce) to facilitate supply chain transactions. B2B e-commerce enabled supply chains produce substantial savings for organizations by reducing the amount of time and money necessary to negotiate contracts, processes orders, and pay suppliers. However, doubt exists as to whether reduced transaction costs are a sustainable competitive advantage for organizations....
Show moreThis dissertation consists of three interrelated studies focusing on the use of business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce (e-commerce) to facilitate supply chain transactions. B2B e-commerce enabled supply chains produce substantial savings for organizations by reducing the amount of time and money necessary to negotiate contracts, processes orders, and pay suppliers. However, doubt exists as to whether reduced transaction costs are a sustainable competitive advantage for organizations. The advent of widespread and cost effective B2B e-commerce enabled supply chains coupled with increasingly complex, dynamic, and global competitive markets are encouraging organizations to form long-term relationships with their trading partners to achieve sustainable competitive advantage from improved supply chain performance. Competition is no longer restricted to large firms and end-product producers, but now encompasses the extended organizational supply chain. Using three separate, but related theories, these studies investigate 1) the factors affecting satisfaction with B2B e-commerce trading relationships, 2) the antecedents and effects of risk and trust on assurance desirability in B2B e-commerce partnerships, and 3) the impact of enterprise risk management procedures on the achievement of sustainable competitive advantage from B2B e-commerce enabled transnational alliances. Critical to achieving sustainable competitive advantage from B2B e-commerce capabilities is the existence of long-term mutually satisfying buyer(-)supplier relationships. The first study examines the antecedents of relationship satisfaction between B2B e-commerce trading partners. Using the relational view of the firm, a theoretical model is developed to investigate the direct and countervailing effects of trust and risk on relationship satisfaction. In addition, the indirect effects of justice and commitment on relationship satisfaction are also investigated. A field survey is used to collect data from 205 industry professionals concerning B2B e-commerce trading partnerships. Structural equation modeling is used to evaluate the hypothesized model relationships. The results support all hypotheses and indicate good model fit with strong explanatory power. This study contributes to the accounting information systems and strategic management literature by investigating the interactive but independent roles of risk and trust within B2B e-commerce trading relationships. The second study examines the integrative effects of power, risk, and trust, along with their antecedents, on the desirability of assurance over a trading partner's e-commerce processes. Using the resource advantage theory of competition as a foundation, a research model is developed to examine the relationships among the various trading partners and organizational factors that drive demand for a high information governance structure such as assurance. A field survey is used to collect data from 205 industry professionals to enable the evaluation of the complex relationships in the overall research model using structural equation modeling. The results support all hypotheses and provide good model fit, strong explanatory power, and strong support for the theory. This study expands the literature on management control systems within interorganizational relationships by addressing three contemporary concerns in the literature: (1) the minimal consideration of the impact of information technology in these relationships, (2) the minimal consideration of the impact of variances in the relative power of the trading partners, and (3) the need to consider the dual influence of risk and trust. Globalization places greater emphasis on the development of transnational alliances. The greatest benefits from alliances are derived from high-level information sharing, but risk escalates with information sharing. The purpose of the third study is to examine the influence of enterprise risk management (ERM) on risk and trust associated with transnational alliances and the resulting impact on interorganizational information sharing. Survey data is gathered from 200 senior-level managers monitoring transnational alliances. Structural equation modeling is used to test the hypothesized relationships. The results provide strong support for the hypothesized relationships and the overall research model, showing that high ERM leads to decreased risk, increased trust, and improved information sharing.
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Date Issued: 2011
Identifier: CFE0004117, ucf:49108
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004117

Title: Two Essays on Investors' Attention to Economically Linked Firms.
Creator: Khoshnoud, Mahsa, Chen, Honghui, Frye, Melissa, Gatchev, Vladimir, Turnbull, Geoffrey, Harrison, David, Roberts, Robin, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: My first essay examines the degree to which the market prices of publicly traded firms reflect and respond to new information regarding the economic viability and vitality of organizations to which they are strategically linked. More specifically, I exploit the uniquely transparent nature of the lessor-lessee relationship across commercial real estate markets to evaluate whether future returns to real estate investment trusts (REITs) are systematically affected by the financial return...
Show moreMy first essay examines the degree to which the market prices of publicly traded firms reflect and respond to new information regarding the economic viability and vitality of organizations to which they are strategically linked. More specifically, I exploit the uniquely transparent nature of the lessor-lessee relationship across commercial real estate markets to evaluate whether future returns to real estate investment trusts (REITs) are systematically affected by the financial return performance and/or operational opacity of the tenants who lease their investment properties. Using a hand collected data set identifying the principal tenants of 96 publicly traded REITs, I find those firms with the best performing tenants generate annualized abnormal returns which are approximately six percent higher than those realized by REITs with the worst performing tenants. These results are robust to a variety of model specifications, and a closer inspection of the results reveals these performance differentials are consistent with emerging evidence across the literature suggesting investors' limited attention materially influences the return predictability of assets. With respect to the current investigation, I thus conclude investors' limited attention leads to the failure of REIT prices to fully reflect the valuation implications of their tenants' return performance.My second essay investigates how sophisticated investors, such as short sellers, trade on information along the supply chain. Short sellers are known to be generally better informed than common investors. Given the economic linkages that exist between the suppliers and customers, one would expect short sellers to trade on such information. My results indicate that short interest predicts unexpected earnings news, consistent with short sellers extracting information from economic relationships. When I evaluate stock return and short interests in regression analysis, I find strong negative relation between short interest in supplier firm and the future stock returns for the customer firm for the return in the next month. The negative relation persists for twelve months. I find similar results from portfolio approach. I argue that one plausible channel that explains the information content of supplier (customer) firm's short interest for the customer (supplier) firms is short sale constraints on the customer (supplier) firms. My results are consistent with this explanation. Overall, my findings suggest that short sellers play an important role in the price discovery of related firms on supply chain, beyond their direct effects documented previously.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: CFE0006755, ucf:51842
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006755

Supply Chain (5)	+ -
Supply Chain Management (4)	+ -
Ontology (2)	+ -
ABC Costing Through Supply Chain (1)	+ -
Automatic Generation Simulation (1)	+ -

B2B E-Commerce (1)	+ -
Build-to-Order Supply Chain (1)	+ -
Change Management (1)	+ -
City Logistics (1)	+ -
Cold Chain (1)	+ -
Contract Breach (1)	+ -
Cost Framework (1)	+ -
DSM (1)	+ -
Decision Making Tool (1)	+ -
Development (1)	+ -
Economic Links (1)	+ -
Emission (1)	+ -
Environmental (1)	+ -
FDI (1)	+ -
Foreign Direct Investment (1)	+ -
Generic Models (1)	+ -
ICSID (1)	+ -
IDEF (1)	+ -
IT Projects (1)	+ -
Information technology (1)	+ -
Interorganizational Relationships (1)	+ -
Inventory Management (1)	+ -
Investment Dispute Settlement (1)	+ -
Investors' Attention (1)	+ -
Last-Mile Delivery (1)	+ -

University of Central Florida (16)	+ -
Rabelo, Luis (3)	+ -
Geiger, Christopher (2)	+ -
Karwowski, Waldemar (2)	+ -
Mollaghasemi, Mansooreh (2)	+ -

Roberts, Robin (2)	+ -
Sarmiento, Alfonso (2)	+ -
Sepulveda, Jose (2)	+ -
Zheng, Qipeng (2)	+ -
Arnold, Vicky (1)	+ -
Barnard, James (1)	+ -
Benford, Tanya (1)	+ -
Boutton, Andrew (1)	+ -
Butler, Renee (1)	+ -
Chau, Ngan (1)	+ -
Chen, Honghui (1)	+ -
Chintagunta, Pradeep (1)	+ -
Cope, Dayana (1)	+ -
Desiraju, Ramarao (1)	+ -
Edwards, Barry (1)	+ -
Fayez, Mohamed (1)	+ -
Frye, Melissa (1)	+ -
Gatchev, Vladimir (1)	+ -
Gutierrez Franco, Edgar (1)	+ -
Hajiaghabozorgi, Ali (1)	+ -
Hamann, Kerstin (1)	+ -
Hampton, Clark (1)	+ -
Harrison, David (1)	+ -
Jeffery, Mariah (1)	+ -
Joshi, Amit (1)	+ -

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