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BP has interest in both upstream and downstream segments in over 100 countries worldwide. The United States subsidiary of BP is the nation's largest producer of oil and gas. This case focuses on the upstream procurement activities in the Gulf of Mexico.

This paper aims to describe the storage constrained, inbound inventory routeing problem and presents bounds and heuristics for solutions to this problem. It also seeks to analyze various characteristics of this problem by comparing the solutions generated by the two proposed heuristics with each other and with the lower bound solutions.

The proposed heuristics use a sequential decomposition strategy for generating solutions for this problem. These heuristics are evaluated on a set of problem instances which are based on an actual application in the automotive manufacturing industry.

The storage space clearly has a significant effect on both the routeing and inventory decisions, and there are complex and interesting interactions between the problem factors and performance measures.

Facility design decisions for the storage of inbound materials should carefully consider the impact of storage space on transportation and logistics costs.

This problem occurs in a number of different industrial applications while most of the existing literature addresses outbound distribution. Other papers that address similar problems do not consider all of the practical constraints in the problem or do not adequately benchmark and analyze their proposed solutions.

The purpose of this paper is to develop efficient heuristics for determining the route design and inventory management of inbound parts which are delivered for manufacturing, assembly, or distribution operations and for which there is limited storage space. The shipment frequencies and quantities are coordinated with the available storage space and the vehicle capacities.

Two heuristics that generate near optimal solutions are proposed. The first heuristic has an iterative routing phase that maximizes the savings realized by grouping suppliers together into routes without considering the storage constraint and then calculates the pickup frequencies in the second phase to accommodate the storage constraint. The second heuristic iteratively executes a routing and a pickup frequency phase that both account for the storage constraint. A lower bound is also developed as a benchmark for the heuristic solutions.

Near optimal solutions can be obtained in a reasonable amount of time by utilizing information about the amount of storage space in the route design process.

The traditional emphasis on high vehicle utilization in transportation management can lead to inefficient logistics operations by carrying excess inventory or by using longer, less efficient routes. Route formation and pickup quantities at the suppliers are simultaneously considered, as both are important from a logistics standpoint and are interrelated decisions.

The two proposed heuristics dynamically define seed sets such that the solutions to the capacitated concentrator location problem (CCLP) are accurately estimated. This increased accuracy helps in generating near‐optimal solutions in a practical amount of computing time.

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature to describe the current practices and research trends in managing supply chains in crisis. This paper also provides directions for future research in supply chain crisis management.

Articles published prior to August 2008 are analyzed and classified.

A unique five‐dimensional framework to classify the literature is provided. The study reveals that there has been extensive research done in this area in recent years. Much of the research is focused on proactive approaches to crisis in supply chains. Management during various internal crises such as supplier bankruptcy or loss of key clients is a new, challenging area that requires further investigation.

This paper does not include articles that are not peer‐reviewed.

This paper will serve as a guide to supply chain managers who would like to know how crises, disasters, and disruptions in supply chains have been handled in existing academic literature.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first literature review in the area of managing supply chains during crisis that looks at both SCM and operations research/management science journals. This paper identifies the various methods that have been used to handle crisis situations and provides a framework to classify the literature. Additionally, this paper identifies gaps in the literature that can provide ideas for future research in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to design and implement a new manufacturing process for biomedical products by removing an electro‐polishing (EP) operation. The research was performed in a major North American orthopedic industry.

Value stream mapping is used to analyze and identify the waste in the current manufacturing process of bone screw. Upon formulation of new (to‐be) process, it has been validated to meet the regulatory requirements for the products through autoclave, endotoxin level, and biomechanical tests. Statistical tests are performed to compare the EP versus non‐EP process.

The study has shown that the EP operation was not only redundant to bone screw manufacturing but also created other problems such as quality and production delays. The overall production lead time of the screws has been reduced from 17 to 4.5 days.

Scope of the pilot study was limited to stainless steel screw. In future, the company plans to perform similar studies on other material types.

The EP operation is very common in the orthopedic industry. However, as found in this paper, it is not required for every component. The bone screw case study presented in the paper offers a huge saving for the company by eliminating a “wasteful” activity from the manufacturing process.

Biomedical products pose unique challenges to the process optimization efforts because of their stringent government and industry requirements. This paper provides an original case study of design, validation, and testing of an improved manufacturing process for a biomedical product.