The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) approach to analyze interrelationships among sustainability criteria, weight them, and then evaluate suppliers according to these criteria. Data were collected through interviewing with seven experts who are involved in the procurement department of the case. Interpretive structural modelling (ISM), and pairwise comparison questionnaire are used to elicit the existence, strength of relationships among criteria and then weight them by using Fuzzy (Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (FDEMATEL), Fuzzy Preference Programming (FPP), and Analytical Network Process (ANP). Then, Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (FTOPSIS) is employed to evaluate suppliers based on identified and analyzed sustainability criteria. This study provides several implications for practitioners and scholars. First, the results show the efficiency of the proposed approach in practice. Second, respondents state that the proposed approach was very useful in decision making based on interrelationships among criteria, alternatives and policies. Third, findings validate the significant difference in rankings with or without considering interdependencies among criteria.

Increasing in attentions to the environment, city legislative and social problems make companies change their prospects towards supply chain management and design sustainable transportation networks. In this paper, two-stage problem have been investigated in which the transportation stage is considered before Location-Routing Problem, so we call it Transportation-Location-Routing Problem (TLRP). It is an extension of the two-echelon Location-Routing Problem. In the first stage, there is a transportation problem with truck capacity limitation. Furthermore, customers’ time windows should be met in the second stage to make the mode more realistic. Minimization of distribution cost, fuel consumption, and carbon dioxide emission along with balancing the workloads for city drivers are considered as the objective functions of the mathematical model to design a sustainable distribution network. To tackle these conflicting objectives, Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II) and Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO) are applied to solve the problem. A new customized chromosome based on a priority based technique is presented for the problem. Due to the three comparison metrics for multi-objective problems, with tolerating a little more computational time, MOPSO has the better performance in this problem than NSGA-II.

Manufacturing organizations are under the pressure to give quality products at least cost within the possible minimum delivery time, even during unpredictable economic conditions. Due to competition like improved customer service and cost reduction, organizations are looking for innovative ways for creating competitive advantage. One such way is the effective information sharing among all the members of supply chain. To understand information sharing, we have to know the benefits of information sharing within the supply chain. In this study, on the basis of the relevant available literature and the suggestions of an expert team composed of managerial and technical experts of the manufacturing organization and academicians, eleven information sharing benefits have been diagnosed. An ISM-based model has been formed to study the understanding of the information sharing benefits in adopting the right information sharing within a manufacturing industry. We propose the ISM model, and a MICMAC investigation is applied. Its practical significance is to make use of the decision makers’ knowledge to give a fundamental understanding of a complicated situation, followed by a course of actions for problem-solving.

The present paper develops a sustainable framework under a supply chain environment by considering a vendor and a buyer. The vendor governs the manufacturing process to serve the demand of the buyer. The manufacturing system is imperfect which ends up producing some fraction of defectives. For the sake of maintaining the goodwill of the organization, it is imperative to maintain the quality standards. Thus, the buyer employs the screening process to bifurcate the perfect items from the imperfect ones. The imperfect items secluded after screening are reverted back to the vendor, for which a warranty cost is incurred. Further, in an attempt to achieve sustainability the model considers the carbon-emissions costs during the transportation process. A one-time discrete investment is also considered for minimizing the setup cost of the vendor for subsequent cycles. The models are developed for the case of the individual decision and for the joint verdict of the players under consideration. Moreover, it has been proved that the integrated model performs proficiently over the individual model. The objective is to jointly optimize the costs sustained by the two players. Numerical analysis and sensitivity analysis is done for imparting the validity and robustness of the model.

Most of the supply chain models have been developed under symmetric information structure i.e. players have complete knowledge of each other’s policies. But in most of the cases, players do not have complete information about the other players i.e. some information regarding their businesses is hidden. This paper studies supply chain model of imperfect quality items under asymmetric information in which unit price taken by the buyer and unit marketing expenditure are influencing product’s demand. This information is hidden to seller. The seller delivers the supply to the buyer. Each delivered lot goes through an inspection process at the buyer’s side. In the inspection process, the items are divided into two categories. The first category is perfect quality items while the second category is of imperfect quality items. After the inspecting the lots, the perfect quality commodities are to be sold at selling price and the imperfect items are supposed to get sold at a discounted price. The interaction between two constituents of the supply chain is modeled by non-cooperative Seller Stackelberg game approach in which the role of leader is played by the seller while the role of follower is played by the buyer. In our proposed model, the seller does not have information related to market demand but the buyer does. Numerical examples and sensitivity analysis explain the significance of the theory.

In this paper, we design a revenue sharing contract to coordinate pricing and inventory control decisions in a serial supply chain consisting of one supplier, one manufacturer and one retailer. We assume that the retailer faces Poisson demand and his unsatisfied demands will be lost. The retailer applies one-for-one period policy in which he constantly places an order for one unit of product to the manufacturer in a predetermined time interval which results in a deterministic demand for the manufacturer. Solution procedures are developed to find the equilibrium in the Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) program with a revenue sharing contract, in which no party is willing to deviate from for the sake of maximizing his own profit. Furthermore, we formulate the total profit of the system and obtain the optimal retail price and order cycle for the retailer and the inventory policy of manufacturer which maximizes the supply chain’s total profit and at the end we will highlight the revenue sharing contract performance.

Vendor managed inventory system is vendor centric inventory system in which all inventory decisions are taken by vendor rather than buyer. This study considers non-instantaneous deteriorating items with generalized type time dependent deterioration rate when demand rate is quadratic function of time and shortages are allowed with partial backlogging. The paper aims to compare traditional inventory system and vendor managed inventory system by analyzing total cost function. To validate the model, numerical example and sensitivity analysis are performed. The analysis shows that vendor managed inventory is more beneficial compare with the traditional inventory system.

This paper investigates the configuration of a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) network, which involves suppliers, a single manufacturer, customers, collection/disassembly centers, disposal centers, a single recovery center and subcontractors. Due to the importance of green issues in the proposed supply chain, the efforts mainly focus on the suitable parts that form more durable and more sustainable products, reduce costs and help the environmental protection. To do so, an integrated framework is introduced which consists of a multi-attribute decision making (MADM) method and a multi-objective mathematical model that determines the material flow in the dynamic consecutive time segments of the network. This flow consists of parts and products which pass through the extant or potential facilities so that ultimately organize a CLSC network. Thereafter, a numerical example is examined by the augmented ε-constraint method and the results are demonstrated in a specific time horizon as an efficient solution. The results show the effects of time horizon in finding different solutions for each time segment. Furthermore, it shows how subcontractors can facilitate the flow of materials.

The nature and complexity of today’s supply chains have predisposed them to various risks, which are described under different terms, including disturbances, uncertainties and riots. Under these conditions, organizations are required to manage their supply chain in a way that is responsive to changes. The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationships between the strategies of coping with disturbances in supply chain networks. This is an applied research and using the research literature, 41 factors are selected for the solutions of coping with risk in supply chain networks. Then, these factors are entered in a questionnaire and presented for some supply chain experts. After that, Interpretative Structural Modeling (ISM) and Fuzzy MICMAC are implemented to rate the solutions of coping with risk in supply chain networks. The results show that the establishment of a supply chain continuity system at the seventh level is the basis of agility in the supply chain. The proper and efficient design of processes in the supply chain network will lead to proper operation in management solutions and appropriate synchronization in the supply chain networks. Using appropriate management solutions in synchronization leads to the integration and proper sharing of information within a supply chain network and between various supply chains and government. Additionally, using the synchrony and integration of supply chain networks, it is possible to design the proper supply chain network and appropriate communication between employees and network elements.

Global competition in the marketing has led organizations to be more responsive and efficient to the customers’ needs through quick-new product development and minimized delivery time. Customer satisfaction becomes the major issue for organizations; therefore organizations focus more and more on the collaborative supply chain. Thus, supply chain collaboration has become a major success factor for the organizations to achieve their corporate goals. The current research study is an attempt to address the supply chain collaboration through a systematic literature review. In findings, various specific areas have been examined to understand the necessity, evolution, issues and challenges, types, drivers, benefits, and barriers in the context of supply chain collaboration. Further, the research gap and future agenda have been derived which is very helpful for academics and practitioners to understand supply chain collaboration, gaps in the literature, and future agenda about the supply chain collaboration.