A Study On Operation Optimization Of Leagile Supply Chain Based On Sub-Chain Integration

Choosing a right operation strategy is vital to the supply chain performance. Inorder to survive and win in the market competion, the supply chain strategy has beendeveloped from leanness, agility to leagility, which is the integration of leanness andagility. Optimizing the leagile supply chain operation is a further move to improvethe supply chain system performance.Compared to leagile supply chain, the optimation of lean supply chain and agilesupply chain is only a partial optimation. So how to improve the holisticperformance of supply chain is the study issue of this essay. Leagility is the strategyof the supply chian which is studied in this dissertation, and it is the opportunity foroptimizing the supply chain performance as well. The aim of this dissertation is tomake a systematic study of the leagile supply chain operating optimization, and themethod we adopted is optimizing the partitial supply chain first, then cooperating thepartial optimizations to get the the holistic optimation. The details are given asbellows.1. Study on the decoupling point in leagile supply chain. Based on thecomprehensive analysis of the strategies of leanness and agility, the conception ofsub-chain is given, according to which the meaning of decoupling point in this thepaper is proposed as well. Then with the two conceptions, the leagile supply chainsystem can be devided into some sub-chains with different strategies which operaterelatively independently, and the advantages derived from sub-chains integration areanalyzed. Finally after analyzing the factors that influence the location of decouplingpoint in leagile supply chain, this paper presents a method combining thequantitative and qualitative analysis to locate the decoupling point, and applies thismethod to a case analysis.2. Study on the performance measuring of the leagile supply chain. For theparticularities in performance measuring of the leagile supply chain, this paperanalyzes the shortcomings of traditional methods, then it provides a variancehierarchical approach based on flexible budget as the performance measuringmethod. This method borrows the idea from flexible budget, it introduces therequired performance as a new comparison to overcome the deficiency of the supplychain planned performance. In the meantime, applying the required performance to variance hierarchical analysis, the leagile supply chain's operation insufficiencieswould be related to the different sub-chains performance, which would point out theperformance improving direction. Finally this paper constructs a measuring modelwith the factors from the supply chain value equation, and combining the model andthe method, a case analysis is given.3. Study on the operation optimization of sub-chains. For the strategicinventory held in the decoupling point of leagile supply chain is vital to thesub-chains and system performance, which is planed by forcasting techinique, so it isthe forcasting technique that virtually determines the sub-chains performance. Thenin this paper, the operation optimization of sub-chains is mainly about the forcastingtechnique optimization. For the multi-level forcasting problem existing in the supplychain, this paper analyzes the relation between demand forcasting and bullwhipeffect. In the meantime, according to the supply chain plan characteristics, thestrategic inventory planning process would be divided into three parts in series,namely demand forcasting, information processing and information transferring.Finally for the AR(1) demand modal, the optimal forcasting techinique is presented,and its superiorities over other two forcasting techniques during the three phases ofthe strategic inventory planning process are proved mathematically.4. Study on the optimization coordination of sub-chains. Based on the supplychain coordination theory, this paper relates the coordination of leagile supply chainwith the Stackelberg game problem, and after analyzing the Stackelbergcharacteristics of leagile supply chain coordination, the coordination mechanismaccordingly is proposed. Then a Stackelberg modal is constructed, in which agilesub-chain is the leader and lean sub-chain is the follower. Finally it is proved that byusing the contract revenue sharing as the second coordination, the sub-chainsperformance can break through the Stackelberg equilibrium and get both thesub-chains and system performance optimized.At last, after summing up the work of the thesis, the future study directionabout the leagile supply chain optimization is proposed.