Facing current client expectations for high quality, timely order response, and multiple shipments of various needed merchandise, today’s producers must simultaneously satisfy external requirements and operate internally with minimum overall expenses and capacity constrained. Aiming to help present-day producers achieve the operational goals mentioned above, this work develops a decisional scheme to determine the best manufacturing-delivery policy for a multi-item economic production quantity (EPQ) system with multi-shipment, quality assurance, overtime, postponement, and external source. Combining a production postponement strategy in our multi-item batch fabricating procedures intends to first make all required standard/common parts for various client-needed merchandise and make finished goods in the 2nd phase. Two fabricating-uptime-shortening strategies are adopted: contracting out a proportion of the standard part’s batch and overtime-making of finished goods. We include screening and rework tasks in fabricating procedures to help us remove the identified scraps and correct the repairable faulty items. The quality-assured finished batches are divided into multiple equal-amount shipments transported to meet client requests. The overall manufacturing-transportation relevant expenses, including quality and uptime-expedited costs, are mathematically modeled and minimized using optimization methodology to help derive the best manufacturing-delivery operating policy. Moreover, we offer an illustration to validate the results and our research scheme’s capability numerically. This work mainly contributes to the literature by presenting a practical decision-making model. It enables the producers to expose numerous crucial problem-related managerial insights to facilitate producers in deciding the most appropriate manufacturing-delivery policy to meet clients’ multi-criteria demands.

This study aims to optimize a hybrid multi-item fabricating-shipping integrated system incorporating scrap, adjustable rate, and postponement. In present-day competitive market environments, there is a clear client demand trend for various goods, shorter lead time, and expected quality. To satisfy the client’s needs, the management of manufacturing firms requires an effective and efficient plan to fabricate various high-quality goods in an expedited period, under limited capacity, and with minimal operating expenses. Inspired by facilitating production management to determine the best fabricating scheme/plan to achieve their operational goals, this work proposes an exploratory postponement model with quality assurance and uptime reduction strategies for their decision-making. By employing a two-phase making scheme, the required standard components are first made in the 1st phase, and multiple finished merchandise is fabricated in the 2nd phase. The study suggests strategies of contracting out a part of the common parts’ batch and adopting an adjusted/expedited making rate in the 2nd phase to considerably reduce both phases’ production uptimes. During both fabricating processes, the screening tasks identify/remove scrapped/faulty goods to ensure each finished batch’s quality. Equal-amount multiple shipments of end merchandise are transported to the clients in fixed time-interval. Optimization methodology and mathematical analyses support us in deriving the model’s expected annual operating cost and deciding the optimal production-transportation policy. A numerical illustration helps verify our model’s applicability and reveals important managerial insights into the studied problem to facilitate management in decision-making.

The present research explores the collective influence of quality assurance and postponement on a hybrid multiproduct replenishing-delivery decision-making. Assume the required multiproduct has a standard (common) component, and our replenishing-delivery model has incorporated a two-phase postponement strategy. The first phase makes all standard components and hires an external supplier to partially provide the required parts to cut short the needed uptime. In contrast, the second phase fabricates the finished multiproduct in sequence. To ensure the desired merchandise quality, we apply a quality-assurance action to the in-house processes to screen and remove scrap items and rework the repairable defects in both stages. Upon completing each merchandise, these products are transported to the customer in n fixed-quantity shipment in fixed-time intervals. We employ math modeling and formulating approaches to gain the overall supply-chain operating expenses comprising subcontracting, fabricating, stock holding, transportation, and customer holding costs. By minimizing system operating expenses, this research determines the optimal replenishing-delivery policy. Lastly, we give a numerical example to demonstrate our study’s applicability and usefulness/capability for facilitating managerial decision-making.

This study examines the collective impact of postponement, scrap, and subcontracting standard components on the multiproduct replenishing decisions. Rapid response, desirable quality, and various goods guide the client’s demands in today’s competitive market. Therefore, many manufacturing firms search for alternative fabrication and outsourcing strategies during the production planning stage to satisfy the client’s expectations, minimize fabrication-inventory costs, and smoothen machine utilization. To effectively help producers meet today's client's needs and enhance their competitive advantage, we develop a two-stage multiproduct replenishing system incorporating scraps, standard parts subcontracting, commonality, and delayed differentiation. To reduce the production uptime, stage one has a hybrid fabrication process for the common components (i.e., a partial outsourcing strategy), and stage two manufactures the finished multiproduct. In-house fabrication processes in both stages are imperfect; a screening process detects and removes scraps to maintain the finished batch quality. We determine the cost-minimized operating cycle. The findings reveal the collective impact of postponement, scrap, and external suppliers on this multi-product replenishment problem and can be used to facilitate production planning and decision-making.

The study examines the combined effect of rework, multiple shipments, postponement, and overtime producing common-component on a multiproduct vendor-client incorporated system. Clients’ product demand trend turns to diversity, quality, and rapid response in the current supply-chain environment. Under such a stiff competitive environment, today’s manufacturers must effectively plan their multi-item fabrication to boost utilization and product quality, minimize total relevant costs, and meet short given order lead time. By considering the commonality of the finished goods, required quality, and completion lead time, this study presents an exact model featuring rework of defects, multiple shipments, postponement, overtime producing the mutual component, and satisfying the market needs. Through the techniques of explicitly modeling, formulating, and system cost minimization, this study simultaneously derives the optimal cycle-time and shipping frequency for the studied problem. A numerical example helps show how our model works for any given parameter values and how the variation in single and multiple factors of the problem affects the crucial system performances (e.g., total uptimes, each relevant cost, utilization, total cost, etc.) A wide variety of today’s industries (e.g., automotive, household goods, etc.) and their related supply chains can utilize our decisional model to reveal in-depth managerial insights for planning their fabrication and shipments.

Manufacturing firms operating in today’s competitive global markets must continuously find the appropriate manufacturing scheme and strategies to effectively meet customer needs for various types of quality of merchandise under the constraints of short order lead-time and limited in-house capacity. Inspired by the offering of a decision-making model to aid smooth manufacturers’ operations, this study builds an analytical model to expose the influence of the outsourcing of common parts, postponement policies, overtime options, and random scrapped items on the optimal replenishment decision and various crucial system performance indices of the multiproduct problem. A two-stage fabrication scheme is presented to handle the products’ commonality and the uptime-reduced strategies to satisfy the short amount of time before the due dates of customers’ orders. A screening process helps identify and remove faulty items to ensure the finished lot’s anticipated quality. Mathematical derivation assists us in finding the manufacturing relevant total cost function. The differential calculus helps optimize the cost function and determine the optimal stock-replenishing rotation cycle policy. Lastly, a simulated numerical illustration helps validate our research result’s applicability and demonstrate the model’s capability to disclose the crucial managerial insights and facilitate manufacturing-relevant decision making.

This study develops a postponement model for the multi-item replenishment decision featuring commonality, an overtime strategy, and product quality reassurance. A single machine is used to meet the steady demand for multiple products wherein product commonality exists among these end products. The proposed postponement model assumes that all pertinent common parts are fabricated in Stage 1 and the finished products are sequentially fabricated in Stage 2. Random nonconformance rates are associated with both fabrication stages, the repairable nonconforming common parts are separated from scrap, and reworking in each cycle helps ensure product quality for each completed batch. An overtime strategy is used to reduce the lengthy fabrication and rework times for common parts. Mathematical analyses and derivation allow us to obtain the total system costs. The optimization method helps find the optimal replenishment decision. We provide a numerical illustration to show (1) how our model works; (2) the individual impact of the system features (e.g., the overtime factor, commonality in terms of the common part completion rate and its relative value, and the issues pertaining to scrap/rework) on the optimal decision, utilization, and the total system cost; and (3) the collective influence of system features on the highlighted problem. This proposed decision-support model helps production managers achieve the operating goals of lowering total system expenses and cutting the length of the production cycle.

This research constructs a mathematical scheme to explore replenishment-shipment decisions for a multiproduct producer-client coordinated finite production rate (FPR) model with the postponement, rework, and subcontracting plan. The considered multiple goods have a common component, and a batch FPR fabrication with postponement is planned to meet the annual multiproduct requirements. The first fabricating phase makes only the standard components needed for a batch and subcontracts a proportion of them (with additional cost) to expedite the process. In contrast, the second fabricating phase produces the finished multiple merchandise in sequence. The in-house rework processes with extra expense help retain the desirable quality. Each merchandise’s finished batch is transported to the clients in equal-sized numerous shipments. This study derives the optimal batch cycle length and transporting frequency by minimizing the overall fabricating-shipment expenses (including clients’ holding costs). This work offers a numerical example demonstrating various crucial system features influenced by the factors of subcontracting, postponement, rework, and transportation policies to facilitate managerial decision making in industries.

Firms' activities to govern their supply chains are defined as supply chain management practices. This research explores a model that describes the association between organizational performance and supply chain management practices. Based on existing research, a theoretical framework for the investigation was established. A standardized questionnaire was developed to gather data for the research, which was completed by 396 supply chain professionals from Saudi Arabian food companies. Partial least square (PLS)–structured equation modeling was used to examine the model and hypotheses. Four independent variables were chosen to scrutinize the impact of supply chain management strategies on organizational performance: customer relationship, strategic supplier partnership, level of information sharing, and postponement. According to the research, customer relationships, strategic supplier partnerships, and information sharing all have a major impact on organizational performance. On the other hand, the postponement has no significant impact on organizational performance.

This study presents a multiproduct fabrication cost-minimization model featuring external providers, commonality, rework, and postponement in the supply chain environment. Customers’ requirements simultaneously emphasize quality, variety, and fast response time in current markets. To satisfy customer needs, most manufacturers in various industries (e.g., clothing, household goods, automotive, etc.) plan their multiproduct fabrication by incorporating a postponement strategy, rework process, and an outsourcing option. Motivated by the viewpoints above, this study offers a decision support system to address customers’ external expectations while optimizing internal operating expenses and machine utilization. We propose a single-machine, two-stage delayed differentiation system under a rotation cycle policy. All needed common parts are made in stage one, and stage two fabricates different end products. An external provider is hired to supply partially needed common parts to shorten uptime. The defective items are inevitably produced in both stages. They are categorized and reworked to maintain the desired product quality. Finally, we derive an optimal cost-minimization rotation cycle for our model and use a numerical example to investigate the collective and individual influences of reworking, postponement, and outsourcing to external providers on the multiproduct fabrication problem. In summary, this study can offer an optimization solution for production planning in various modern industries.