ANALYSIS OF SUPPLY CHAIN ALIGNMENT: A MODELING APPROACH

摘要

Strategic alignment from the purchase of raw materials to the delivery of the finished product is a common characteristic of successful companies. Supply chain alignment reduces system uncertainty so that the right products are delivered to the right customers in the right quantity at the right time. Recent research has proposed that selection of an appropriate supply chain strategy should be based upon the specific characteristics of the product. Without a tool to employ, alignment of product characteristics with an appropriate supply chain design could be cumbersome and result in suboptimal solutions. In this paper, the authors suggest a process using Inventory Analyst~(TM), an optimization software tool, to model product and supply chain combinations. The model will generate quantitative measures of alignment between product characteristics and supply chain strategies for analysis. The findings of this research will provide empirical evidence as to the validity of Supply Chain Alignment Theory.