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Collaborative Planning in Multi-tier Supply Chains Supported by a Negotiation-Based Mechanism and Multi-agent System

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Abstract

Effective business process collaboration between companies operating in a supply chain can bring about important benefits, but several barriers need to be overcome. One important obstacle evidenced by professionals is related to the information and communication technologies used to support such collaboration. Although a supplier and a manufacturer may be willing to establish a closer relationship, a lack of easy-to-operate enterprise applications can thwart their collaborative ambitions. Specific technologies are required for each type of collaborative business process as generic applications do not lend themselves to addressing complex situations. Complexity lies in the need to consider common standards for information and decision exchanges, and for designing and implementing the right information and decision flow among supply chain members to support collaborative processes. This paper focuses on collaboration of demand, production and replenishment planning along a supply chain, and proposes a multi-tier, negotiation-based mechanism supported by a multi-agent system. The research hypothesis is that improvements in the service and profit level of supply chain members, and in the entire supply chain, can be achieved by implementing this form of collaboration. The proposed collaborative planning model was used to address a real automotive supply chain configuration for the purpose of testing its appropriateness and validating its performance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Liverpool Management School, Chatham Building, Chatham Street, Liverpool, L69 7ZH, UK

    Jorge E. Hernández & Andrew C. Lyons

  2. CIGIP, Research Centre on Production Management and Engineering, Campus d’Alcoi de la Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain

    Josefa Mula & Raúl Poler

Authors
  1. Jorge E. Hernández
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  2. Josefa Mula
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  3. Raúl Poler
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  4. Andrew C. Lyons
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jorge E. Hernández.

Additional information

This work has been supported by the REMPLANET project (Ref. NMP2-SL-2009-229333) funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Program—EU FP7 Project 229333.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 10, 11, and 12

Table 10 Demand patterns
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Table 11 Delay in demand
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Table 12 Configurations of the input data for main SC nodes
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Hernández, J.E., Mula, J., Poler, R. et al. Collaborative Planning in Multi-tier Supply Chains Supported by a Negotiation-Based Mechanism and Multi-agent System. Group Decis Negot 23, 235–269 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-013-9358-2

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