Virtual agent modeling of an agile supply chain infrastructure

Abstract

In today’s volatile business environment, whether a company is able to compete in the local and global arena depends heavily on how effective the company can build up the partnership synergy with their business counterparts. Indeed, it is important that companies are able to monitor effectively on the manufacturing activities outside its boundary, such as business partners with dissimilar business nature and probably geographically isolated from each other. With the emergence of a dispersed manufacturing network, the important issue is the communication with the partners, collection of data, and making use of data. This paper calls for an effort to suggest practical and agile approaches and models to avoid a poorly managed supply chain in order to improve productivity and cost‐effectiveness to support the business. The agility of the supply chain models would also be concerned to ensure that there is enough adaptability in the system to respond and tackle problems that may occur in the turbulent market.

Citation

Lau, H.C.W., Wong, C.W.Y., Pun, K.F. and Chin, K.S. (2003), "Virtual agent modeling of an agile supply chain infrastructure", Management Decision, Vol. 41 No. 7, pp. 625-634. https://doi.org/10.1108/00251740310495559