An Automated Supply Chain Management System and Its Performance Evaluation

Abstract

The MIDAS system is an automated supply chain management system that enables customers, manufacturers, and suppliers to cooperate over the Internet. MIDAS aims to achieve high customer satisfaction by supporting the build-to-order customization model and to reduce inventory carrying costs and logistics administration costs at the manufacturer by supporting the just-in-time manufacturing model. It allows a manufacturer to choose from the MIDAS Registry, suppliers of components, and negotiate based on the prices, availability, and delivery times of those components. The manufacturer can use one of several strategies to aggregate customers’ orders before processing them, and one of several strategies to accumulate suppliers’ quotes before deciding on a particular supplier. The paper presents an evaluation of these strategies in terms of the customer’s satisfaction, as measured by the customer response time, and the manufacturer’s gain, as measured by the number of orders aggregated or the best price ratio.

Informatics and the Challenge of Determinism

“…The IS in place must be capable of managing the downstream and upstream supply chain. For example, current order and accounting procedures (at least in large organisations-those most likely to require an IS) are automated with 'just-in-time' ordering and delivery [61] with computerised accounting systems.…”