Supply networks

As conceptualized above, supplier management is not just a responsibility of the buyer it involves multiple partners in the supply chain with evolving expertise. While managing the supply network is more of a buyer s role, quality and procurement are typical supplier roles, and fulfillment may involve third parties. However, these roles continue to evolve. 

As suppliers take on more responsibility for technology innovation, they will need to become more agile and adept in managing the technology portfolio. This may create opportunities for the entry of more established suppliers from the consumer electronics to create modular systems. In some cases suppliers with high business volumes (because of multiple customers) can advance technology much more effectively than the OEM. The supply chain, as a whole, must determine what kind of partnership would be most effective. In what follows, we describe some of the elements of supplier management (shown in Fig. 4.1). 

A supply network comprises interconnected entities that exchange information, products, and services through procurement and transformation of resources to goods and services (Harland et al. 2001 Choi and Rungtusanatham 2001). The 

---

Generally, there will be no insurmountable difficulty in obtaining an electrical power supply, the principal factors being the cost of providing it and the time delay in making it available. The scale and nature of the project will dictate the amount of power required, the load characteristics and the most suitable voltage for its supply. The state of the public supply network in the area of the proposed development will then constrain the supply authority in its ability to quote for a suitable supply in the short, medium or long term. 

In many developed and developing countries, there are now extensive natural gas supply networks, which provide secure and reliable sources of gas fuel. The user may require some pressure reduction and metering equipment... 

In general, supply chain simulation can be used along the lifecycle of supply chains, that is from supply chain design to support of supply chain operation. In supply chain design, simulation models can support supply network design (decisions on the location, ramp up or shutdown of production or warehousing sites) as well as the adjustment of control parameters such as safety stock at different... 

In SAP APO, the master planning process is implemented in the Supply Network Planning (SNP) module. SNP offers a multitude of functionalities, not all of which can be described in the limited scope of this chapter. More details on the SNP module can be found, among others, in [10]. 

From the different planning methods available within SNP, SNP optimization is selected because it offers the best fit to the customer requirements outlined above. The main reasons for this decision are the multisourcing characteristics of the supply network as well as the fact that the objective functions used by the SNP optimizer, profit maximization or cost minimization, correspond to the planning philosophy favored by the customer. In addition to SNP optimization with its cost-based approach, SNP offers several heuristic-based planning methods which follow a rule-based logic. 

The SNP model contains all relevant locations, i.e., production plants and distribution centers, in the supply network. The cross-locational sourcing aspect of the planning scenario is handled within the master planning process. SNP determines which of the plants produces which quantities of which products in which time periods. On a rough level, SNP also determines which production alternative is used at a specific plant, for instance with regard to ingredients and general process characteristics. 

Integration of Supply Network Planning and Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling... 

The network is composed by locations and transportation lanes between these locations consistent to supply network structure definitions e.g. in... 

The challenge in supply planning is that specifically the available production quantities per month can depend on the schedule of the products on a specific resource if change-overs consume significant time so that the overall capacity error in die rough-cut master plan would not be acceptable. Therefore, supply network planning includes also the aspect of hierarchical planning, where production quantities based on a discrete monthly... 

Gupta/Maranas (2003) as one example for a demand uncertainty model present a demand and supply network planning model to minimize costs. Production decisions are made here and now and demand uncertainty is balanced with inventories independently incorporating penalties for safety stock and demand violations. Uncertain demand quantity is modeled as normally distributed random variables with mean and standard deviation. The philosophy to have one production plan separated from demand uncertainty can be transferred to the considered problem. Penalty costs for unsatisfied demand and normally distributed demand based on historical data... 

How can product strategies in the market be integrated with complexity costs, product life cycle decisions and supply network design ... 

Asgekar V (2004) The Demand Driven Supply Network. Supply Chain Management Review April 2004 15-16... 

Habla C (2006) Planning and optimization of global supply network in the process industry, Technical University of Berlin... 

Jang Y, Jang S, Chang B, Park J (2002) A combined model of network design and production/distribution planning for a supply network. Computers Industrial Engineering 43 (1-2) 263-281... 

In this chapter, we will mainly address the vital topics in theoretical membrane research. Specifically, we will consider aqueous-based proton conductors. Our discussion of efforts in catalyst layer modeling will be relatively brief. Several detailed accounts of the state of the art in catalyst layer research have appeared recently. We will only recapitulate the major guidelines of catalyst layer design and performance optimization and discuss in some detail the role of the ionomer as a proton-supplying network in catalyst layers with a conventional design. 

As the fresn water supplies are scarce in the area, it was a matter of concern to locate the possible source of water for dilution purposes. Slightly salty brackish water which can easily be found in the area was decided to be used. The existing water supply network to... 

The practical example of real distribution systems is the natural gas supply network scheme offered by the Statoil corporation (Figure 3). In order to effectively build up this kind of distribution systems it is necessary to make use of the modular systems development results, and also to make use of the base of virtual reality simulation methodologies in order to prepare the architecture that responds to all requirements and needs of distributed systems. 

---