The Declarative Framework Approach to Decision Support for Constrained Search Problems
Paweł Sitek, Jarosław Wikarek · InTech eBooks · 2011
Supply chain managementIncreasing competition in today's global market and the heightened expectations of customers have forced enterprises to consider their supply chains more carefully.A supply chain (SC) can be considered as a network of stages that represent functionalities (including suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers) that must be provided to convert raw materials into the specified end-products and deliver these end-products to retailers or customers (Simchi-Levi et al., 2003).A supply chain system (SCS) is usually composed of a series of organizations and/or independent companies.A supply chain system is the set of approaches utilized to efficiently integrate suppliers, manufacturers, warehouses, www.intechopen.comEfficient Decision Support Systems -Practice and Challenges From Current to Future 164 distribution centers, retailers and ultimately the customers so that merchandise is produced and distributed at the right quantities to the right locations and at right times, in order to minimize the total system cost while satisfying the service level requirements.The main operational activities of the supply chain system include: 1. Raw materials: sales forecasting, inventory planning, and purchasing, transportation between suppliers and manufacturers -Suppliers.2. Work-in-process: processing and managing efficiently the inventories of partially completed products inside the manufacturing plants -Manufacturers.3. Finished goods: warehousing of finished goods inventory, servicing the customers, and transporting materials among the wholesalers, retailers, and customers.These parts reflect the basic movement of goods, services, and information through an integrated system-Distributors, Retailers, Customers.A supply chain is characterized by a forward flow of goods and a backward flow of information (Fig. 1).Commonly, a supply chain is compromised of two basic business processes: material management physical distribution Increasingly, the management of multiple relationships across the supply chain is being referred to as supply chain management (SCM) (Douglas et al., 2000). How to referenceIn order to correctly reference this scholarly work, feel free to copy and paste the following:Paweł Sitek and Jarosław Wikarek (2011).The Declarative Framework Approach to Decision Support for Constrained Search Problems, Efficient Decision Support Systems -Practice and Challenges From Current to Future, Prof. Chiang Jao (Ed.),