Proposing a competitive model in supply chain network with focus on development of partnership supply and virtual alliance

نوع: Type: thesis

مقطع: Segment: PHD

عنوان: Title: Proposing a competitive model in supply chain network with focus on development of partnership supply and virtual alliance

ارائه دهنده: Provider: Saeid Rezaei

اساتید راهنما: Supervisors: Dr. Javad Behnamian

اساتید مشاور: Advisory Professors:

اساتید ممتحن یا داور: Examining professors or referees: Dr. Reza Tavakkoli-Moghaddam, Dr. Ebrahim Teimoury, Dr. Amirsaman Kheirkhah

زمان و تاریخ ارائه: Time and date of presentation: Sunday, 10/17/2021

مکان ارائه: Place of presentation: Online

چکیده: Abstract: Competition to gain more market share leads to the development of a dynamic environment and the continuous realization of the improvement cycle in supply chain networks. Basically, this competition can be carried out in both inter-network and intra-network platforms. In the first case, supply chain networks seek to create a preferred network based on competitive values, and in the second case, this competition can be conducted between members of a particular level (horizontal) or different levels (vertical) of a Supply chain network. This study examines the development of competition in the above-mentioned structures and its impact on decisions related to supply chain network design, in which resource ownership is replaced with ownership of relationships and the development of a partnership supply network. In this regard, a group of parent firms, which are at the upper levels of the network, own the supply chain relationships and try to take appropriate decisions to gain more competitive advantage. It is worth mentioning that no manufacturing operations are carried out in these companies and they only seek to establish proper communication and interaction with the main manufacturers, develop their own brand and, ultimately, gain more market share in distribution and sale. For this reason, they are called virtual manufacturers. In addition, these parent firms conduct the policy of franchise correspondences (granting business concessions to volunteer sales centers to operate under the parent firm brand) in stores' levels. Further to competition between supply networks to gain more market share (first structure), sales centers established upon franchise strategy also compete with each other at the lowest level of the network (with the aim of achieving more profit). On the other hand, sales centers belonging to each virtual manufacturer (brand) while competing with each other for more profits, seek to develop the overall network share in the market through cooperation with partners of the same level. This concept is based on the development of a virtual alliance downstream of the network. This research provides an approach in terms of multi-factory distribution through which the requirements of environmental sustainability can be met. In other words, each parent firm seeks to make the most use of existing logistic facilities (limited by environmental requirements). Thus, it is assumed that a third-party logistics company (while obtaining environmental certificates and multifaceted transportation facilities) is responsible for distributing products in different regions. The company imposes capacity constraints arising from environmental considerations on supply networks, thereby developing a distributed delivery process. The multi-level problem is formulated in two strategic periods based on the phases of introduction and growth and in terms of a multi-stage planning process in which two levels involved at each stage compete with each other. Equilibrium outcomes (strategies adopted by players in equilibrium) are used as the input to the next stage. After problem modeling (using mixed integer programming method) in the strategic phases under discussion, two innovative algorithms based on Nash and Stackelberg game concepts and using LP-metric techniques, weighted sum and Epsilon constraint are presented to solve the problem in simple dimensions. Due to the structure of the problem in different stages of planning and the fact that the optimal solution of the problem in large dimensions is very time consuming, a matheuristic method called hybrid Benders Decomposition-Particle Swarm Optimization is utilized. Finally, the efficiency of the three algorithms of Benders Decomposition-Particle Swarm Optimization, pure Benders Decomposition and the proposed heuristics are compared with each other. The results of this evaluation show that although the innovative algorithm based on LP-metric techniques, weighted sum and epsilon constraint as well as Benders Decomposition have good performance in small and to some extent medium problems, hybrid Benders Decomposition-Particle Swarm Optimization illustrates a better performance in high dimensional issues