Increasing global competition has led to massive outsourcing of manufacturing businesses. Such outsourcing practices require effective collaborations between the manufacturing companies and their partners by sharing a large amount of information. In the meantime, since some of the partners are also potential competitors, protection of confidential information, particularly intellectual property...

Social responsibility is a key factor that could result in success and achieving great benefits for supply chains. Responsiveness and reliability are important social responsibility measures for consumers and all stakeholders that strategists and company managers should be concerned about them in long-term planning horizon. Although, presence of uncertainties as an intrinsic part of supply chai...

There are many reasons for the growing interest in developing new product projects for any firm. The most embossed reason is surviving in a highly competitive industry which the customer tastes are changing rapidly. A well-managed supply chain network can provide the most profit for firms due to considering new product development. Along with profit, customer satisfaction and production of new ...

this research provides an optimization tool for use by supply chain managers in the design and operation of manufacturing- distribution networks under uncertain demand conditions. the problem under consideration consists of determining the supply chain infrastructure; raw material purchases, shipments, and inventories; and finished product production quantities, inventories, and shipments neede...