Involvement of smart technologies in an advanced supply chain management to solve unreliability under distribution robust approach

The proposed study described the application of innovative technology to solve the issues in a supply chain model due to the players' unreliability. The unreliable manufacturer delivers a percentage of the ordered quantity to the retailer, which causes shortages. At the same time, the retailer provides wrong information regarding the amount of the sales of the product. Besides intelligent technology, a single setup multiple unequal increasing delivery transportation policy is applied in this study to reduce the holding cost of the retailer. A consumed fuel and electricity-dependent carbon emission cost are used for environmental sustainability. Since the industries face problems with smooth functioning in each of its steps for unreliable players, the study is proposed to solve the unpredictable player problem in the supply chain. The robust distribution approach is utilized to overcome the situation of unknown lead time demand. Two metaheuristic optimization techniques, genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are used to optimize the total cost. From the numerical section, it is clear the PSO is 0.32 % more beneficial than GA to obtain the minimum total cost of the supply chain. The discussed case studies show that the applied single-setup-multi-unequal-increasing delivery policy is 0.62 % beneficial compared to the single-setup-single-delivery policy and 0.35 % beneficial compared to the single-setup-multi-delivery policy. The sensitivity analysis with graphical representation is provided to explain the result clearly.

Automated summary

This study applies innovative technology to solve supply chain issues caused by unreliable players. By using intelligent technology and multiple delivery transportation policies, the holding cost of retailers is reduced, and environmental sustainability is considered through carbon emission costs. The study successfully addresses the problem of unpredictable players in the supply chain and utilizes metaheuristic optimization techniques to optimize the total cost.