Supply-chain optimisation – players, tools and issues

This paper starts by describing a study that was undertaken to assess the state of the art in supply chaim optimisation tools and software available. Our goals were to evaluate industry trends as well as academic trends in this dynamic and quickly growing field. Our conclusions for industry trends are that industry leaders would rather purchase technology than go through the development process. Also, flexibility is on the rise in industry, leading to easier integration. Academic research, on the other hand, is likely to address limitations of the basic and optimisation-based ERP systems, the integration of the different phases of a product life cycle, and focus in the area of interconnected industrial supply chain networks. After familiarising the reader with the tools and players in the supply-chain optimisation area, we focus on a potential growth area in this field that simultaneously addresses inventory and transportation logistic issues. We motivate the need to study this area with the help of a simple example and then briefly list a set of issues that would need to be addressed to effectively research this sub-field.