Search results

The purpose of the present research is to explore the current situation and future expectations on whether to self‐manage or outsource logistics operations in centralized healthcare networks, and to analyse and quantify the relationships between logistics outsourcing, costs and performance.

The paper is based on a thorough study of a local Italian healthcare network, which evaluated the economic sustainability of logistics outsourcing. The data were collected using interviews, documentation and observations in hospital pharmacies and wards, and by referring to public information available on the internet. A system dynamic simulation followed by a sensitivity analysis was used to investigate the impact of changing key variables as well as the advice of logistics providers.

The sensitivity analysis demonstrates that logistics outsourcing is often the most economical choice.

Performance‐oriented concepts applied to healthcare have many pros in terms of sustainable delivery of quality healthcare at affordable costs.

While there are numerous studies on logistics outsourcing in many industries, when it comes to the healthcare sector literature is scarce, probably due to the great changes this sector has faced in recent times: thus, the paper's quantitative findings should be seen as a first attempt to assist the “make‐or‐buy” decision process toward sustainable development of the healthcare sector.

Logisticians in the worldwide industry are frequently faced with the problem of measuring the total cost of holding inventories with simple and easy-to-use methodologies. The purpose of this paper is to look at the problem, and in particular illustrate the inventory holding cost rate computation, when different kind of warehousing systems are applied.

A multiple case study analysis is here developed and supported by a methodological framework directly derived from the working group discussions and brainstorming activities. Two different field of application are considered: one related to five companies with manual warehousing systems operating with traditional fork lift trucks; the other is among five companies operating with automated storage/retrieval systems (AS/RS) to store inventories.

The multi-case study helps to understand how the holding cost parameter is currently computed by industrial managers and how much the difference between manual and automated/automatic warehousing systems impacts on the inventory cost structure definition. The insights from the ten case studies provide evidence that the kind of storage system adopted inside the factory can impact on the holding cost rate computation and permit to derive important considerations.

The final aim of this work is to help industrial engineers and logisticians in correctly understanding the inventory costs involved in their systems and their cost structure. In addition, the multi-case analysis leads to considerations, to be applied in different industrial contexts. As other industrial applications are identified, they may be analyzed by using the presented methodology, and with aid from the data from this paper.

The relevance of this work is to help industrial engineers and logisticians in understanding correctly the inventory costs involved in their logistics systems and their cost structure. In addition, the multi-case analysis lead to interesting final considerations, easily to be applied in different industrial contexts. As other industrial applications are identified, they may be analyzed by using the methodology and extrapolating the data from this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to apply group assembly (GA) considerations to the construction industry and to provide evidence of construction sector industrialization with quantitative results. Moreover, a flexible assembly system is proposed, especially designed to cope with variability: this can be easily extendable to other industrial sectors, especially when dealing with extremely variable environments.

The paper presents a case study conducted at an Italian company leader in the design, manufacture and installation of architectural claddings and lightweight continuous facades.

The research empirically demonstrates how the application of GA and the creation of project families lead to consistent enhancement also within the construction industry. The case study reveals great improvement in terms of both operating and ergonomic performances, agile assembly system reconfiguration design and make span reduction. The possibility of correlating a new project to an identified family gives the opportunity to understand the best assembly line layout configuration which should be assigned to the project, to improve the throughput time and the controllability of the assembly process and to guarantee efficient floor space utilization, lead‐time control, accuracy and reliability.

The novelty of the study lies in the way the assembly layout is designed to cope with variability: the assembly line, which is dedicated to more stable processes, is coupled with pre‐assembly stations, easily reconfigurable, meant to be “variability absorbers”. As far as the authors know, this is also the first time GA is applied to the construction industry. Moreover, a timely topic such as construction sector industrialization is confirmed by quantitative results.

The purpose of this paper is to analytically examine the viability of using blockchain technology (BT) in a public distribution system (PDS) supply chain to overcome issues of shrinkage, misplacement and ghost demand.

The authors use a standard news vendor model with two objectives, the first of which includes a reduction of the total cost of stock, while the second includes minimization of the negative impact of human suffering due to the nonavailability of subsidized food supplies to the needy people.

The authors applied the model to a real-life case to draw meaningful insights. The authors also analyzed the cost/benefit tradeoff of adopting BT in a PDS supply chain. The results show that the adoption of BT in a charitable supply chain can reduce pilferage and ghost demand significantly.

The paper is positioned for utilizing inventory visibility via consistent and tamper-resistant data stream flow capability of BT to enhance the overall efficiency of PDS. Notably, Indian PDS faces three major challenges in terms of its supply chain efficiency.