| One of the objectives in supply chain management is to satisfy customer service level requirements. In order to guarantee customers a satisfactory service level, all the parties in supply chains should be integrated efficiently. The manufacturer, for example, needs to measure and control the influence of component supply on customer service level. It is important for cost-effectiveness to comprehend how much value the limited resource possesses as well as to identify operation policies to deliver guaranteed service level with limited capacity. In this dissertation, we study how to manage capacitated supply chains to guarantee customer service level.; First, we consider make-to-order systems where the manufacturer has a limited production capacity and the component is supplied under vendor-managed-inventory programs. We demonstrate that measuring supplier performance by conventional service level measures is in general insufficient for the manufacturer to warrant the desired service level at the customer end. We suggest alternative supplier performance measures that enable the manufacturer to control the influence of component supply on customer service level.; Next, we consider assemble-to-order systems where the assembler has a limited source for the custom component supply. In such systems, supplier flexibility has an enormous impact on customer service level. We suggest a framework of estimating the value of flexibility through the cost of standard component supply to deliver the same customer service level.; Finally, we consider a continuous time manufacturing system where the customers who notify their arrival in advance have higher priority. The capacitated manufacturer may guarantee different service levels for the high- and low-priority customers. We show the trade-offs between the leadtime and other system characteristics such as the proportion of high-priority customers, when the service level is high. We also suggest how to differentiate service using the asymptotic ratio of the service levels for both customer types. |
