Reliability Improvement in Supply Chain Design under Demand and Supply Uncertainties

• Ilham Kissani

Reliability is defined as the ability of a system or component to perform its required functions under stated conditions for a specified period of time (IEEE 90). Good reliability levels are considered as a major determinant of industrial systems’ performance. Nevertheless, the complexity and also the vulnerability of modern supply chains due to their extended activities, multiplied partners and spread entities over the world, imply that the reliability of those systems could be defied significantly. With the increasing changes, uncertainties become more frequent and more difficult to manage. To assure the reliability of their networks, manufacturing firms should not ignore the uncertainties of their modeling parameters. This paper proposes a process of reliability improvement in case of uncertainties of demand and supply; and formulates a model representing a large problem of supply chain design. The proposed model consists of selecting reliable suppliers based on a redundant supply network (composed of redundant suppliers) in order to counter the risks of failures in supply, besides, the model incorporates the possibility of reconfiguration of the whole supply chain in terms of layout and capacity options’ selection.

Seiten 57 - 75