Today’s supply networks consist of a certain amount of logistics objects that are enabled to interact with each other and to decide autonomously upon their next steps; in other words, they exhibit a certain degree of autonomous cooperation. Therefore, modern logistics research regards them as...

Modern technologies, such as RFID, offer never-before seen learning abilities to parts moving in supply chains. Logistics systems may be understood as complex adaptive logistics systems (CALS). They also may be conceived as electronic auction markets as 'smart parts' bid for the best routing and...

Global supply chains (GSCs) are confronted with the phenomenon of hyper-competition. For this reason there seems to be an increasing necessity for GSCs to build up competitive advantage in order to survive. Strategic flexibility is assumed to have positive effects on generating required...

Multiclass queueing networks are an essential tool for modeling and analyzing complex supply chains. Roughly speaking, stability of these networks implies that the total number of customers/jobs in the network remains bounded over time. In this context robustness characterizes the ability of a...

We propose a two-stage hyper-heuristic for the generation of a set of work centre-specific dispatching rules. The approach combines a genetic programming (GP) algorithm that evolves a composite rule from basic job attributes with an evolutionary algorithm (EA) that searches for a good assignment...

To improve their position at the market, many companies concentrate on their core competences and hence cooperate with suppliers and distributors. Thus, between many independent companies strong linkages develop and production and logistics networks emerge. These networks are characterised by...