This paper proposes agent-based formulation of a Supply Chain Management(SCM) system for manufacturing firms. We model each firm as an intelligent agent, which communicates each other through the blackboard architecture in distributed artificial intelligence. To overcome the issues of...

Supply Chain Execution (SCE) software solutions represent an attractive market for both application providers and users. The paper refers to the characteristics of the SCE market and focuses on the warehouse management systems (WMS). The main features and functions of the WMS are addressed. The...

Trading in commodity derivatives on exchange platforms is an instrument to achieveprice discovery, better price risk management, besides helping macro-economy withbetter resource allocation. Since the inception (2003) of national online trading onmulti-commodity exchange platforms, the trade...

A conceptual framework is developed and tested in which supplier downstream position in the supply chain, supplier innovation strategy and customer development commitment are seen as the antecedents of supplier product development activity. Using partial least squares (PLS), we analyze the...

Central America has received growing attention as a region that is integrating successfully into the global economy. This paper examines—among other things—the macroeconomic and fiscal implications of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA-DR), noting that the...

This paper uses real option methodology to compare the cost of a long-term contract with a price cap to that of spot purchases in construction material procurement. In construction, material procurements are usually short-term, project-based and subject to high price volatility. These...

This paper analyses coordination in a supply chain consisting of a supplier and a retailer, where the retailer has the opportunity to return products at midlife and end-of-life. The paper examines particularly the coordination problem when the supplier has the opportunity to realise a limited...

Purpose – Firms compete using a variety of strategies. Typically they aim to provide something different, to be better, or simply cheaper. In the construction industry, the performance characteristics, quality and cost of the final delivered project will be the outcome of the interplay of...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the key risk components (probability and consequence) and their respective thresholds affecting agri-food supply chain operations in Ghana. In addition, it seeks to understand the relationship between the major risk sources and to fathom the...

Although coined more than 15 years ago, relationship marketing remains an ambiguous concept with plenty of rhetoric but few publications on empirical evidence in support of a relationship marketing paradigm shift. A research project is currently studying marketing dyads in the international food...