Creating value by collaborative scheduling along supply chain

Abstract

Scheduling along the supply chain of multiple stages of factories is a very complex process. When the scheduling of a factory itself is very complex, the detail scheduling encompassing the entire supply chain is almost impossible. The shipbuilding industry has such a nature of complexity. Even though the scheduling and coordination along the supply chain is not a new problem at all, the result from real scale complex scheduling and coordination is not reported in the literature yet. So this research studies the effectiveness of coordination in scheduling of shipbuilding with a real world data. To evaluate the effectiveness of coordination, we compare three approaches: Push Scheduling, Look-ahead Scheduling, and Look-ahead & Collaboration, and develop the algorithms and rules suitable for the scheduling in shipbuilding. The Push Scheduling means the final assembler (dock in the shipbuilding case) establishes its assembly schedule and requests its supplies to deliver the necessary parts (blocks in shipbuilding case) according to its assembly schedule. If the supplying factories cannot effectively satisfy the requested due dates, the collaboration between the buyer and suppliers are inevitable sharing the information about the demand, load level, and capacity. If the final assembler considers this information in its scheduling, it is a Look-ahead Scheduling which will balance the load levels of sub-assemblers. In this phase, the final assembler however cannot consider the detail situation of sub-assemblers. The sub-assembler will conduct its precise scheduling with the due dates requested by the final assembler. Then each sub-assembler will be able to find out the tardiness and load level according to the currently requested due dates. If the sub-assemblers need to modify the orders which cause the tardiness of certain jobs, the sub-assembler may negotiate either with the final assembler or with the other compatible sub-assemblers. If the tardy job is transfer...