Reconfiguration of Supply Chain Systems

Paper in proceeding, 2000

In order to achieve customer satisfaction and enable agile manufacturing, responsiveness from the supply chain has to be enabled during its operation. When disturbances or new opportunities for sales occur, options available to deal with the situation have to be identified and evaluated in order to take decisions. This paper introduces a framework for dealing with such situations, focusing on how to make best use of the materials network by reconfiguration of the supply chain. A model inspired from computer science is introduced. The objective is to increase fault tolerance in order to achieve materials availability and mission reliability. The paper overviews present SCM approaches, before introducing the reconfiguration approach. A DAP (Dormant, Active and Propagated) model for faults, errors and failures is used to overview problems of materials availability, and materials and mission reconfiguration mechanisms are explored. Finally, information accessibility for options of reconfiguration of supply chains is discussed.