the primary purpose of this paper is to highlight for the research community and practitioners the various aspects of using vmi-type supply chains in today’s business environment as well as a number of directions for future studies. in this regard, fifty articles published in major international journals, beginning in 1995, which contribute to the vmi-type supply chains are reviewed via a syste...

 It is scientifically challenging to determine the inventory level all through the supply chain in such a way that the desired objectives such as effectiveness and responsiveness of the supply chain system can be obtained. Simulation is a means for solving various problems which cannot be solved by regular exact models such as mathematical ones due to their complexity. The present paper is aime...

flexibility is one of the most important indicators of a supply chain .a flexible supply chain in the face of market changes and customer needs, must be responsive to the changes and needs, to be able to attract customers in the a competitive marketplace. being aware of the flexibility of a supply chain helps managers to solve problems and overcome deficiencies and increase the competitive adva...

A spatial data infrastructure (SDI) is a complex integrated network of spatial data producers, distributors and consumers that can be viewed as an extended geographic information enterprise. A way of gaining a better understanding of an SDI is to break it down into its constituent components so that individual SDI entities and their interactions can be analyzed. Prior SDI literature suggests an...

In today complex worldwide supply chains, intermediary organizations like Contract manufacturers and GPOs are mostly used. Well-known OEMs delegate their purchasing and procuring to these intermediaries. Because of their positive influence on supply chain efficiency, it is very important to investigate the role of intermediaries in today competitive supply chains. One important question arising...

one effective method for improving the performance of supply chain is making coordination among members of supply chain. this paper studies the subject of coordination of supply chain by using an insurance contract. the supply chain consists of one-manufacturer and one-retailer that the retailer is faced with potential demand and returning of goods from customer. acceptance of goods returned is...

agility is the fundamental characteristic of a supply chain needed for survival in turbulent markets, where environmental forces create additional uncertainty resulting in higher risk in the supply chain management. in addition, agility helps providing the right product, at the right time to the consumer. the main goal of this research is therefore to promote supplier selection in pharmaceutica...

Supply chain coordination has become a critical success factor for supply chain management (SCM). In the past few years, the researchers have widely emphasized that cooperation among supply chain (SC) firms is a key source of competitive advantage. This paper is focused on supply chain coordination from the perspective of inventory management. Li and Liu [1] developed a model for illustrating h...

Reverse supply chain is a process dealing with the backward flows of used/damaged products or materials. Reverse supply chain includes activities such as collection, inspection, reprocess, disposal and redistribution. A well-organized reverse supply chain can provide important advantages such as economic and environmental ones. In this study, we propose a general framework and formulate a m...