Design of an Intelligent Supplier Knowledge Management System - An Integrative Approach

Abstract

The drive to cut costs continually and focus on core competencies has driven many companies to outsource some or all of their production. Unlike the past, companies can no longer concentrate only on their own internal business operations, but have to work with customers and suppliers effectively and efficiently. The integration of customer demand and supplier capability to facilitate supplier management using data mining and artificial intelligence technologies has become a promising solution for outsourced-type companies in outsourcing manufacturing operations to suitable suppliers. The result is to form a supply network on which they depend on the provision of products and services. In this paper, a supplier knowledge management system (SKMS) is introduced for such a purpose. By using its hybrid on-line analytical processing (OLAP)/artificial neural networks (ANNs)/case-based reasoning (CBR) approach in predicting future customer demands and allocating suitable suppliers during the order fulfilment process, it is found that the overall efficiency in the whole supply chain is greatly enhanced. A case study using the SKMS to integrate the order subcontracting system of Farnell Newark-InOne (Shanghai) Limited is presented. Through the use of the SKMS, the demand of customers is related to the supplier's capabilities both efficiently and effectively while, at the same time, valuable supplier knowledge is also accumulated by the company.

A study on customer, supplier, and competitor knowledge using the knowledge chain model

“…In the initial stage of product development, if it is possible to apply the relevant marketing strategies to ensure the opinions of the customers and suppliers are considered by the enterprise, then it is also possible to be involved in the design process in order to enhance the product development and reduce the time required for research (Choy, Tan, & Chan, 2007). The suppliers' knowledge of design and manufacturing should thus be utilized by any firm that seeks to ensure the competitive advantage of a new product.…”

“…Supplier KM provides standards for the creation, sharing, harvesting and leveraging of knowledge within the partnering companies. It also makes supplier access and retrieval of knowledge more efficient, thus increasing supplier satisfaction rates (Choy et al, 2007).…”

A location prediction method for work-in-process based on frequent trajectory patterns

“…For example, the trajectory in Figure 2 is demonstrated as T i = [(1, 1, 1), (2, 2, 1), (4, 3, 2), (2, 5, 3), (3, 6, 2), (4, 7, 2), (3, 9, 1), (4, 10, 1)]. The node (4,3,2) means that the no. 4 candidate workstation for no.…”

“…To achieve this, there is an urgency to apply emerging technologies, for example, smart analytics, advanced prediction tools and cyber-physical systems, to the traditional manufacturing systems. 1,2…”

“…To achieve this, there is an urgency to apply emerging technologies, for example, smart analytics, advanced prediction tools and cyber-physical systems, to the traditional manufacturing systems. 1,2 As the key factor during the execution process of a manufacturing system, the topic of work-in-process (WIP) control and management aims to monitor WIP inventory and the WIP-level performance for each workstation, material and information flows and to track manufacturing elements, manufacturing resources and production states. WIP control and management occupy an important role in increasing the production efficiency, decreasing the production cost and improving the production quality.…”