A methodology for improving the design of a supply chain

Abstract

A supply chain comprises an interlinked network of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and customers, whereby material flows from the suppliers through manufacturers and distributors to the customers. This paper is concerned with the central research issue of developing a methodology to improve the design of a supply chain. In practice, the complexity of real-world supply chains makes the development of a suitable methodology for supply chain design improvement a challenging research task. In this paper, a network-based approach, called Extended Trans-Nets, is presented that represents the design of the supply chain as an abstract network with ‘AND’ and ‘OR’ nodes. A constraint-based genetic algorithm is used as part of the Extended Trans-Net approach to search for improvements in the design that satisfy the constraints imposed on the system. The basis and operation of Extended Trans-Nets are described and this is followed by an example, together with a description of the initial computer implementation of Extended Trans-Nets.