Supply Chainmanagement For Small To Mediumsized Enterprise Considering Risk

Supply chain (SC) is a set of interrelated entities directly involved in the upstream to downstream flows of products, services, information and finances from a source to a customer. The rising of supply chain management (SCM) comes along with the economic globalization and the diversification of demand. A flexible and stable relationship between supply and demand will be achieved by coordinating members in the chain from a gloable perspective, which enhances the ability of enterprises to face risk and opportunity.Small to medium sized enterprise (SME) is an integral part of modern economic, which has limited resources, flexible market response, low power of negotiation, high degree of participation by owner in the operation and weakness in resisting risk. While the requirements of the core enterprise of the supply chain to SME on product quality, price, storage and transportation are increasingly stringent. And various types of risk in political, economic, social environment and the operation occur frequently. Those make SME suffering with unprecedented pressure and crisis. Therefore, the urgency of the implementation of supply chain management by SME is more significant. Many scholars have studied the feasibility, strategies and empirical reports of the supply chain management for SME, and a wealth of researches are existence. However, economic and efficient framework has not been designed for small to medium sized enterprises (SME). And the quantitative study of supply chain and risk management from the view of SME is also limited.In this dissertation, based on the review of the SME supply chain management literature, combined with the theory of supply chain risk management, supplier selection, supplier switching, cooperative procurement and multi-agent technology, a series of SCM framework for SMEs based on multi-agent system are constructed with the considering of risk.This dissertation involves eight chapters. The main content of each chapter is summarized as follows:The first chapter points out the importance of SME supply chain management and risk control. The goal of this study, the main research methods and the structure of this article are illuminated.The second chapter introduces the basic knowledge of supply chain and supply chain management. Researches associated with this article, on supply management, risk management and supply chain management for SME are reviewed and summarized.Chapter3briefly introduces the characteristics and knowledge of the Agent and Multi-Agent System (MAS). A review of Multi-Agent System in the field of supply chain management applications and related researches are given. Finally, the analysis of fittness between supply chain management for SME and Multi-Agent Systems is made, and a SME oriented supply chain management architecture based on MAS is constructed.In chapter4, with the cooperative procurement to SME as the background, a purchasing consortium for SMEs based on MAS is built and the system architecture and negotiation mechanisms are suggested. An improved group assessment aggregation algorithm is used and the risk factors in the decision-making environment are considered.Chapter5considers the risk prevention of the supply and demand risk exsiting in the SC of SME. The optimal number of suppliers is discussed, and the parameters influence on the results and their meaning are analysed. At the end, some managerial implications are recommended.Chapter6constructed a SME supplier selection model based on MAS. This System is based on the model of the previous chapter, which helps determining the optimal number of suppliers. And a weighted linear programming model for multi-criteria supplier evaluation is introduced. Moreover, the function of the Agent, message type, negotiation and select process in this framework is described detailly.In Chapter7, a SME oriented supplier switching model based on MAS is constructed. Vendor risk assessment mechanism by the third-party using Bayesian theory is proposed and thus a supplier switching model considering the risk factors is suggested. The basic model, expanding and option models of supplier switching decision are analyzed.Chapter8summarizes all the works of this dissertation and the outlook for research. This chapter analyzes and summarizes the MAS models suggested in this dissertation, and innovations and future researches are illuminated.Focus on SME, the supply chain risk management is embedded in the supply chain management systems. Economic and efficient supply chain management frameworks for SME based on MASs are constructed. The purpose of this research is to provide viable programs for SME supply chain management and to enrich the researches in related fields.