- Industrial Engineering department, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University 44519, Zagazig, Sharkia, Egypt
Noha A . Mostafa
Zagazig University, Industrial Engineering, Faculty Member
- Noha A. Mostafa is an Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management, Zagazig University. She is curren... moreNoha A. Mostafa is an Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management, Zagazig University. She is currently a lecturer in The British University in Egypt. She got B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from Zagazig University. She was a visiting PhD student in Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan in 2016. She finished her PhD degree in 2017 from Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST), Egypt; the topic was the integration between different functions of the supply chain. Noha has broad research interests including supply chain management, logistics, sustainability, quality management, design thinking, value engineering, data analytics, and information systems. She is the founder and faculty advisor of IEOM student chapter in Zagazig University.edit
The pollution routing problem is a 'Green logistics' practice that extends the classical vehicle routing problem to consider sustainable logistics issues. To do so, wider objectives are included; which naturally leads to more complex... more
The pollution routing problem is a 'Green logistics' practice that extends the classical vehicle routing problem to consider sustainable logistics issues. To do so, wider objectives are included; which naturally leads to more complex combinatorial optimization problems. This paper introduces a new mathematical model to solve the routing problem of a fleet of reefers that extends the typical model by considering the energy consumption of the refrigeration unit. The results illustrate that considering the effect of refrigeration as a new variant of the routing problem can achieve between 3.8% to 11.1% energy saving.
Research Interests:
In this paper, an under development mixed-integer programming model is presented and used to solve the Production-Inventory-Distribution-Routing Problem (PIDRP), the main objective is to minimize the total cost of production, inventory,... more
In this paper, an under development mixed-integer programming model is presented and used to solve the Production-Inventory-Distribution-Routing Problem (PIDRP), the main objective is to minimize the total cost of production, inventory, and transportation without violating the demand fulfillment policy. The proposed model deals with multiple products with different characteristics, split deliveries, a heterogeneous fleet of vehicles, and a route limitation for each vehicle. The main contribution of this work is the validation of the mathematical model and testing it for solving small-sized instances from literature.
Research Interests:
Production scheduling tools close the gap between ERP/MRP II tools and the plant floor. Simulation can be used to generate production schedules on an ongoing basis in a way that does not violate constraints related to the limited... more
Production scheduling tools close the gap between ERP/MRP II
tools and the plant floor. Simulation can be used to generate production
schedules on an ongoing basis in a way that does not violate constraints related
to the limited availability. In this paper, the process of tablet manufacturing in a
pharmaceutical production plant is studied, first the full process is described
and mapped, and then a process simulation is run. Based on the simulation
results, statistical analysis is performed; the data is fitted by using regression
analysis. Design of experiment (DOE) analysis is performed on the process to
try many different combinations of resource levels automatically, and finally
analysis of variance (ANOVA) is performed to select infeasible products that
can be excluded from future production plans, this will have a positive effect on
the return on investment for the organisation.
tools and the plant floor. Simulation can be used to generate production
schedules on an ongoing basis in a way that does not violate constraints related
to the limited availability. In this paper, the process of tablet manufacturing in a
pharmaceutical production plant is studied, first the full process is described
and mapped, and then a process simulation is run. Based on the simulation
results, statistical analysis is performed; the data is fitted by using regression
analysis. Design of experiment (DOE) analysis is performed on the process to
try many different combinations of resource levels automatically, and finally
analysis of variance (ANOVA) is performed to select infeasible products that
can be excluded from future production plans, this will have a positive effect on
the return on investment for the organisation.
Research Interests:
PurposeSmart contracts are self-executing computer programmes that have the potential to be used in several applications instead of traditional written contracts. With the recent rise of smart systems (e.g. Internet of things) and digital... more
PurposeSmart contracts are self-executing computer programmes that have the potential to be used in several applications instead of traditional written contracts. With the recent rise of smart systems (e.g. Internet of things) and digital platforms (e.g. blockchain), smart contracts are gaining high interest in both business and academia. In this work, a framework for smart contracts was proposed with using reputation as the system currency, and conducts currency mining through fulfilling the physical commitments that are agreed upon.Design/methodology/approachA game theory model is developed to represent the proposed system, and then a system dynamics simulator is used to check the response of the blockchain with different sizes.FindingsThe numerical results showed that the proposed system could identify the takeover attacks and protect the blockchain from being controlled by an outsider. Another important finding is that careful setting of the maximum currency amount can improve t...
Research Interests:
Outsourcing is hiring an external company to do one or more internal activities because these activities are either difficult to achieve, or costly to do in-house. This external hired company is known as Third Party Logistics (3PL). 3PL... more
Outsourcing is hiring an external company to do one or more internal activities because these activities are either difficult to achieve, or costly to do in-house. This external hired company is known as Third Party Logistics (3PL). 3PL selection decision inherently is a multi-criterion problem, sometimes with strategic importance to companies. Management science techniques might be helpful tools for these kinds of decision-making problems. Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) techniques are often used to solve 3PL problems. In this paper, different types of MCDM are overviewed, and then a framework for 3PL selection is proposed by using a hybrid two-phase Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) to select the best 3PL company providing the most satisfaction for the criteria determined, and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to evaluate the performance of 3PLs. This integration provides a good methodology to rank 3PLs.
Research Interests:
Smart service systems have been dealing with various wicked social and cultural problems by providing diverse solutions for society. Cargo transportation is one of the most challenging issues in logistics; in this paper, we explore... more
Smart service systems have been dealing with various wicked social and cultural problems by providing diverse solutions for society. Cargo transportation is one of the most challenging issues in logistics; in this paper, we explore multiple stakeholders’ information environments surrounding containerized cargo transportation by a design thinking approach. Throughout the analysis, the latent problems are summarized in the following two manners: (1) miscommunication with inefficient information flow among multiple stakeholders; and (2) a lack of resource management coordination among service providers. With these two identified problems, the objective of this work is to develop a prototype information and communication technology-based service application for both trucking companies and customers. This work makes two contributions. First, it methodologically proposes a customer-centered design approach for logistics management by adopting a design thinking approach. Second, it suggest...
Research Interests:
Manufacturing and production processes have become more complicated and usually consist of multiple stages to meet customers' requirements. This poses big challenges for quality monitoring due to the vast amount of data and the... more
Manufacturing and production processes have become more complicated and usually consist of multiple stages to meet customers' requirements. This poses big challenges for quality monitoring due to the vast amount of data and the interactive effects of many factors on the final product quality. This research introduces a smart real-time quality monitoring and inspection framework capable of predicting and determining the quality deviations for complex and multistage manufacturing systems as early as possible; introduces a hybrid quality inspection approach based on both predictive models and physical inspection in order to enhance the quality monitoring process, save resources, reduce inspection time and costs. Several supervised and unsupervised machine learning techniques such as support vector machine, random forest, artificial neural network, principal component analysis were used to build the quality monitoring model with considering the cumulative effects of different manufa...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a buzzing technology nowadays. It is believed to have the potential for revolutionizing today’s world. Several projects and publications addressed the use of IoT in various applications such as smart... more
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a buzzing technology nowadays. It is believed to have the potential for revolutionizing today’s world. Several projects and publications addressed the use of IoT in various applications such as smart cities, smart homes, wearables, smart grids, connected vehicles, and health care. However, few works addressed the potential of using IoT in educational institutions. The technological revolution along with several changes through the past era, including the COVID-19 global pandemic, have made it indispensable to employ innovative learning methods, also, the students will be looking forward to existing in the environment of a smart campus. This study presents a framework to elucidate how IoT can be used to bring a smart and innovative university campus to life in order to improve the efficiency of delivering the daily educational activities. In the context of sustainable development, the social and environmental interactions should be considered to provide a sustainable campus. Also, challenges are investigated and research opportunities are highlighted. This framework can be put in practice in guiding universities to adopt novel visions to improve the performance of their educational activities and student life experience by properly adopting and deploying IoT technologies. These concepts are elaborated based on the case of the innovative campus of the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology, which is located in New Borg Elarab, Alexandria, Egypt.
Research Interests:
This paper reviews one of the brightest eras of modern Egypt. That was the age under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Pasha who ruled Egypt from 1805 to 1848. The paper illustrates how the modern science was introduced into Egypt from... more
This paper reviews one of the brightest eras of modern Egypt. That was the age under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Pasha who ruled Egypt from 1805 to 1848. The paper illustrates how the modern science was introduced into Egypt from Europe. The main research question is: if Egypt started its modernization process in the first part of the 19th century, much earlier than Japan, why eventually Egypt ended up as a developing country, while Japan is now one of the most developed countries in the world? A comparison between the modernization in Egypt during the reign of Muhammad Ali and his successors and in Japan after the Meiji restoration in 1868 may produce some clues.
Research Interests:
Process simulation tools play an important role in manufacturing. They are used to generate production schedules on an on-going basis in a way that does not violate constraints related to the limited availability. Production scheduling... more
Process simulation tools play an important role in manufacturing. They are used to generate production schedules on an on-going basis in a way that does not violate constraints related to the limited availability. Production scheduling tools close the gap between ERP/MRP II tools and the plant floor. In this paper the process of tablet manufacturing in a pharmaceutical production plant is taken into consideration, first the full process is described and mapped, and then a process simulation is run. Based on the simulation results, a statistical analysis is performed; the data is fitted by using regression analysis. Design Of Experiment (DOE) analysis is performed on the process to try many different combinations of resource levels automatically, and finally analysis of variance (ANOVA) is performed to select infeasible products that can be excluded from future production plans, this will have a positive effect on the return on investment for the organization.
Research Interests:
Abstract:" Egypt is one of the most countries that face the problem of drug counterfeit, counterfeit trade is near to 1 billion LE, out of 12 billion LE the volume of drug market trade in Egypt" As announced by the official... more
Abstract:" Egypt is one of the most countries that face the problem of drug counterfeit, counterfeit trade is near to 1 billion LE, out of 12 billion LE the volume of drug market trade in Egypt" As announced by the official speaker of the ministry of Health and Population in ...
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT Production scheduling tools close the gap between ERP/MRP II tools and the plant floor. Simulation can be used to generate production schedules on an ongoing basis in a way that does not violate constraints related to the limited... more
ABSTRACT Production scheduling tools close the gap between ERP/MRP II tools and the plant floor. Simulation can be used to generate production schedules on an ongoing basis in a way that does not violate constraints related to the limited availability. In this paper, the process of tablet manufacturing in a pharmaceutical production plant is studied, first the full process is described and mapped, and then a process simulation is run. Based on the simulation results, statistical analysis is performed; the data is fitted by using regression analysis. Design of experiment (DOE) analysis is performed on the process to try many different combinations of resource levels automatically, and finally analysis of variance (ANOVA) is performed to select infeasible products that can be excluded from future production plans, this will have a positive effect on the return on investment for the organisation.
Research Interests:
Smart service systems have been dealing with various wicked social and cultural problems by providing diverse solutions for society. Cargo transportation is one of the most challenging issues in logistics; in this paper, we explore... more
Smart service systems have been dealing with various wicked social and cultural problems by providing diverse solutions for society. Cargo transportation is one of the most challenging issues in logistics; in this paper, we explore multiple stakeholders’ information environments surrounding containerized cargo transportation by a design thinking approach. Throughout the analysis, the latent problems are summarized in the following two manners: (1) miscommunication with inefficient information flow among multiple stakeholders; and (2) a lack of resource management coordination among service providers. With these two identified problems, the objective of this work is to develop a prototype information and communication technology-based service application for both trucking companies and customers. This work makes two contributions. First, it methodologically proposes a customer-centered design approach for logistics management by adopting a design thinking approach. Second, it suggest...
Research Interests:
Nowadays, the warehouse acts as a competitive factor in any supply chain as it has a main role in linking all the partners in it. Hence, it has become very necessary to allocate its resources efficiently and manage it effectively. A sound... more
Nowadays, the warehouse acts as a competitive factor in any supply chain as it has a main role in linking all the partners in it. Hence, it has become very necessary to allocate its resources efficiently and manage it effectively. A sound warehouse management system can contribute to cost reduction and improve customer satisfaction. However, traditional warehouse management system models have become unsuitable and inefficient for today's market requirements. So, companies have started to adopt innovative approaches and technologies to be used for such applications; one of these technologies is the Internet of Things that enables the connection between several physical objects and produces a massive amount of real-time data that can be transferred to useful information that helps in managing and decision making. In this paper, the architecture of this application is illustrated, its potential benefits are overviewed, and a framework for implementing this technology in a warehouse is proposed. This system can help in achieving more control and monitoring on all the operations in the warehouse in real time, increase speed and efficiency, and prevent counterfeiting and inventory shortage. The proposed framework can be taken as a roadmap for enterprises to improve warehouses by using the Internet of Things. Also, the benefits of implementing the proposed framework and its challenges are proposed.
Research Interests:
The research objective of this paper is to develop a storytelling-based knowledge-sharing application that enables users to co-create their own stories for both individuals and groups. To address this, a design science research... more
The research objective of this paper is to develop a storytelling-based knowledge-sharing application that enables users to co-create their own stories for both individuals and groups. To address this, a design science research methodology was applied for elucidating users' requirements. As empirical evidence, a case study was conducted on the children's book industry to synthesize a knowledge-sharing design application named "StoryWeb". Usability tests were conducted to reconfigure users' feedback and suggestions after two StoryWeb prototypes were developed. This study makes three main contributions. First, it empirically tests individual's or group's creativity and co-creation by a view of knowledge sharing. Second, it methodologically applies a design thinking approach into a knowledge-sharing study. Third, it also practically suggests feasible guidelines for the creativity and innovation research community on which features of storytelling-based applications can be configured.
Research Interests:
Waste generation in developing countries is highly increasing due to the accelerated economic growth. This raises many issues and concerns due to the high population and the improper waste management. For the Arab countries, the amount of... more
Waste generation in developing countries is highly increasing due to the accelerated economic growth. This raises many issues and concerns due to the high population and the improper waste management. For the Arab countries, the amount of municipal solid waste generated is about 81.3 million tons per year; less than 20% is adequately treated, and less than 5% is recycled. Another main issue is the transportation and logistics of waste. To address these issues, this chapter adopts ‘reverse logistics’ to explore how to manage waste and increase waste utilization efficiently. The scope of this chapter is Egypt and can be generalized to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The main interest of this chapter is to understand the role of reverse logistics in waste management and to determine the factors that influence logistics decisions and practices for waste management.
Research Interests:
The emergence of new digital industrial technology, known as Industry 4.0, has a positive impact on the performance of the supply chain. Warehouses are a basic part of the supply chain; they are used to store products and manage the... more
The emergence of new digital industrial technology, known as Industry 4.0, has a positive impact on the performance of the supply chain. Warehouses are a basic part of the supply chain; they are used to store products and manage the inventory level. A sound warehouse management system can lead to cost reduction and also can improve customer satisfaction. Traditional warehouse management models have become less efficient and unsuitable for today's increasing market requirements. For the past decades, information and communication technology has been used for warehouse management. This paper presents a new approach for warehouse management by utilizing one of the main pillars of Industry 4.0, the Internet of Things. This new technology enables the connection of several objects through collecting real-time data and sharing them; the resulting information can then be used to support automated decision-making. The architecture of this application is illustrated and its potential benefits are overviewed. A framework is proposed to implement this approach in warehousing management, which can help in providing real-time visibility of everything in the warehouse, increasing speed and efficiency, and preventing inventory shortage and counterfeiting. This proposal gives an effective roadmap for enterprises to improve their warehouses by using the Internet of Things.
Research Interests:
Outsourcing is hiring an external company to do one or more internal activities because these activities are either difficult to achieve, or costly to do in-house. This external hired company is known as Third Party Logistics (3PL). 3PL... more
Outsourcing is hiring an external company to do one or more internal activities because these activities are either difficult to achieve, or costly to do in-house. This external hired company is known as Third Party Logistics (3PL). 3PL selection decision inherently is a multi-criterion problem, sometimes with strategic importance to companies. Management science techniques might be helpful tools for these kinds of decision-making problems. Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) techniques are often used to solve 3PL problems. In this paper, different types of MCDM are overviewed, and then a framework for 3PL selection is proposed by using a hybrid two-phase Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) to select the best 3PL company providing the most satisfaction for the criteria determined, and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to evaluate the performance of 3PLs. This integration provides a good methodology to rank 3PLs.
Research Interests:
In any supply chain, the warehouse is a main component in linking the chain partners and nowadays it acts as a competitive factor. Hence, it has become very necessary to manage warehouses effectively and allocate their resources... more
In any supply chain, the warehouse is a main component in linking the chain partners and nowadays it acts as a competitive factor. Hence, it has become very necessary to manage warehouses effectively and allocate their resources efficiently. Warehouse Management Systems (WMSs) have been developed for monitoring, tracking and controlling the warehouse operations, but with the increasing dynamicity of the market, traditional systems have become less efficient and unsuitable for today's market requirements, that is why new technologies have started to emerge to be used for such applications. Internet of Things (IoT) is a promising technology that can be used in the context of Industry 4.0. In this paper, a smart WMS framework based on IoT is proposed; this system helps the warehouse manager to achieve more control and monitoring of the operations in real time. A review of WMS and IoT implementation in warehouses is presented. Also, the blocks and layers of IoT are illustrated. Finally, the benefits and challenges of implementing IoT in the supply chain and the warehouse are discussed.
Research Interests:
The concept of organizational sustainability is a trending interest in both industry and academia. As with innovation, the business environment is still not well adapted to adopt these concepts. This paper focuses on developing a... more
The concept of organizational sustainability is a trending interest in both industry and academia. As with innovation, the business environment is still not well adapted to adopt these concepts. This paper focuses on developing a theoretical business model for organizational sustainability that takes into consideration the environmental, economic, and social issues. An exploratory study was designed for a case study from the Egyptian chemical industry to recognize the relation between innovation and organizational sustainability, and thee willingness to adopt these concepts. The findings of the study provide insights and suggestions for the organization to implement innovation and organizational sustainability.
Research Interests:
The tourism industry is currently facing many challenges; one of the main challenges is the lack of having smart tourism systems that make use of the recent advances in information and communication technology. Another challenge is... more
The tourism industry is currently facing many challenges; one of the main challenges is the lack of having smart tourism systems that make use of the recent advances in information and communication technology. Another challenge is designing such smart tourism systems while embracing diversified tourists' sustainable values of experience (functional values, social values, emotional values, and epistemic values). In light of these challenges, the overall objective of this work is to design a smart tourism experience-centered system that considers social and technical perspectives. The Socio-Technical Systems theory was adopted as a theoretical foundation, and the Design Science Research methodology was used to develop a smart tourism system and a practical design artifact. A case study from the Japanese tourism context was studied by exploring tourists' sustainable values of experiences and local staffs' behaviors. The main problem was the dysfunctional communication between local service staffs and foreign tourists during the service process. After identifying the problem and the objectives, a relevant smart tourism system was synthesized and tested as a design artifact. The results of the utility test of the proposed artifact showed its effectiveness and efficiency in facilitating the service process and in creating multi-dimensional values of experience.
Research Interests:
The Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) is one of the most popular routing problems. In the CVRP, a fleet of capacitated vehicles located at a central depot are used to deliver products to a set of geographically dispersed... more
The Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) is one of the most popular routing problems. In the CVRP, a fleet of capacitated vehicles located at a central depot are used to deliver products to a set of geographically dispersed customers with known demand. In this work, a new two-step approach to solve the CVRP with a heterogeneous fleet is proposed. In the first step; a balanced K-means clustering algorithm is used to aggregate the customers into balanced clusters. In the second step, clusters are assigned to vehicles and a MIP model is solved with adding valid inequalities that are used to reduce the volume of the mathematical model. Then the problem is disaggregated to find the detailed tours for each vehicle. The proposed approach was used to solve benchmark problems from literature, and it proved its efficiency in terms of quality, vehicle utilization, and computational time. The contribution of this work is combining the clustering algorithm with cutting techniques in order to find near-optimal solutions within reasonable computational times.
Research Interests:
In this paper, outpatient clinics' systems are addressed and their common issues were discussed. As a case study, the private clinics in Egypt are used, and a designed service solution was synthesized. In the case study, the system and... more
In this paper, outpatient clinics' systems are addressed and their common issues were discussed. As a case study, the private clinics in Egypt are used, and a designed service solution was synthesized. In the case study, the system and application was mainly physician-oriented rather than patient-oriented. With such physician-oriented systems alongside with the current design approaches, waiting times and appointment scheduling are two critical issues. Therefore, in this study, a design thinking approach was implemented to address these design problems for patients and clinic staffs. Based on that analysis, a design application solution called "YourClinic" was developed to support online booking and consultation. This study provides design features and functions to improve the quality of communication between patients and clinic staffs, reduce waiting time, and develop schedules for patients and staffs in order to move towards a patient-oriented clinic service.
Research Interests:
In this paper, we synthesize an effective communication prototype that deals with some challenges in the container-trucking sector in Egypt, mainly multiple stakeholders' communication problems associated with waiting time.... more
In this paper, we synthesize an effective communication prototype that deals with some challenges in the container-trucking sector in Egypt, mainly multiple stakeholders' communication problems associated with waiting time. Container-trucking is one of the most important activities in logistics management. However, Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-based methods are very limited to identify the latent communication issues in this sector in Egypt. To address these issues, we conducted a design thinking methodology in order to understand multiple stakeholders' requirements, using qualitative research techniques. As the results, we found that the main problems faced by customers are trucking company selection, miscommunication, and the lack in the information flow, while the main problem faced by trucking companies is the fluctuations in resource utilization. Based on this, we developed a web-based prototype to represent the core features and functions to improve communication in both Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Customer (B2C). Consequently, this paper has two main contributions. First, it applies design thinking approach to a logistics problem and presents an IT-based solution for it that will reduce processing time. Second it increases customer satisfaction and improves resource utilization in the trucking companies.
Research Interests:
Integration of decisions in supply chain management has received increasing consideration recently. The Production-Inventory-Distribution-Routing Problem (PIDRP) is a recent and complex problem that integrates decisions on lot-sizing,... more
Integration of decisions in supply chain management has received increasing consideration recently. The Production-Inventory-Distribution-Routing Problem (PIDRP) is a recent and complex problem that integrates decisions on lot-sizing, inventory management, distribution planning, and vehicle routing problems. In this paper, a generic problem description is given and a Mixed-Integer Programming model (MIP) is proposed to solve the PIDRP, the objective is to minimize the total cost of the combined functions while satisfying the required service levels. The proposed model contributes to the existing literature since it deals with multiple products, split deliveries, a heterogeneous fleet of vehicles, and puts a limit on the duration of the route performed by each vehicle. The proposed model was successfully validated and tested by using small-sized instances from literature. Also, a sensitivity analysis was performed to investigate the effect of estimated parameters on the model results.
Research Interests:
This paper reviews one of the brightest eras of modern Egypt. That was the age under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Pasha who ruled Egypt from 1805 to 1848. The paper illustrates how the modern science was introduced into Egypt from... more
This paper reviews one of the brightest eras of modern Egypt. That was the age under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Pasha who ruled Egypt from 1805 to 1848. The paper illustrates how the modern science was introduced into Egypt from Europe. The main research question is: if Egypt started its modernization process in the first part of the 19 th century, much earlier than Japan, why did it ended up as a developing country, while Japan is now one of the most developed countries in the world? A comparison between the modernization in Egypt during the reign of Muhammad Ali and his successors and in Japan after the Meiji restoration in 1868 may produce some clues.
Supply chain management includes several functions that are planned and managed to improve the total performance of the supply chain, the general objective is to minimize system-wide costs while satisfying service level requirements.... more
Supply chain management includes several functions that are planned and managed to improve the total performance of the supply chain, the general objective is to minimize system-wide costs while satisfying service level requirements. Previously, each function was addressed as an isolated problem, however, it was found that focusing on cost minimization in one area of the supply chain often leads to higher costs in other areas; this is why the integration of different supply chain management functions has received increasing consideration recently. The production-inventory-distribution-routing integrated planning is a step forward towards more integration and realism in supply chain management, as it integrates lot-sizing, inventory management, distribution planning, and vehicle routing problems. In this paper, a review of the recent literature addressing the joint consideration of these aspects is presented and research gaps are highlighted. It was noticed that the existing models tackle relatively simple cases. However, in real life, more complex systems and variants exist. To make a step forward, a generic problem description and a mathematical model are proposed to address the production-inventory-distribution-routing problem. Finally, a conceptual framework is presented to illustrate the existing and potential work in this topic; this framework is expected to provide good directions for researchers to work in this area.
Research Interests:
The inventory management of multi-echelon repairable items systems is a major problem as these items are relatively expensive and slow-moving, so, inventory management can be a real problem due to mathematical complexities. In this work,... more
The inventory management of multi-echelon repairable items systems is a major problem as these items are
relatively expensive and slow-moving, so, inventory management can be a real problem due to mathematical
complexities. In this work, a study was performed in a complex high-value products manufacturer, whose repairable
items are both expensive and critical. Data of parts’ failure, storage and repair system structure were collected. We
present statistical analysis methods that can be exploited in data reduction and classification to facilitate the
inventory management procedures. Statistical methods used in this work include; DOE, regression analysis,
distribution fitting, and ARIMA models.
relatively expensive and slow-moving, so, inventory management can be a real problem due to mathematical
complexities. In this work, a study was performed in a complex high-value products manufacturer, whose repairable
items are both expensive and critical. Data of parts’ failure, storage and repair system structure were collected. We
present statistical analysis methods that can be exploited in data reduction and classification to facilitate the
inventory management procedures. Statistical methods used in this work include; DOE, regression analysis,
distribution fitting, and ARIMA models.
Research Interests:
"Egypt is one of the most countries that face the problem of drug counterfeit, counterfeit trade is near to 1 billion LE, out of 12 billion LE the volume of drug market trade in Egypt" As announced by the official speaker of the ministry... more
"Egypt is one of the most countries that face the problem of drug counterfeit, counterfeit trade is near to 1 billion LE, out of 12 billion LE the volume of drug market trade in Egypt" As announced by the official speaker of the ministry of Health and Population in Egypt. Hence, it can be seen that the drug counterfeit problem is a threatening problem nationally and internationally. Due to the great expansion of supply chains, the drug counterfeit problem has become more complex. In this work, many aspects are discussed including: ePedigree, Databases, RFID, 2D barcodes, Multi-agent systems, and the integration of these tools to develop a system to secure the pharmaceutical supply chain. This paper presents MASP (Multi-Agent System for Pharmaceutical supply chains) and its technological components. The MASP system is developed to control and secure the supply chain and make sure that the product that get out of the manufacturer will find its right way to customers.
Research Interests:
This paper presents a new mathematical model to select an optimal combination of productivity improvement techniques. The proposed model of this paper considers four-stage cycle productivity and the productivity is assumed to be a linear... more
This paper presents a new mathematical model to select an optimal combination of productivity improvement techniques. The proposed model of this paper considers four-stage cycle productivity and the productivity is assumed to be a linear function of fifty four improvement techniques. The proposed model of this paper is implemented for a real-world case study of manufacturing plant. The resulted problem is formulated as a mixed integer programming which can be solved for optimality using traditional methods. The preliminary results of the implementation of the proposed model of this paper indicate that the productivity can be improved through a change on equipments and it can be easily applied for both manufacturing and service industries.
Research Interests:
Collaboration in supply chains has received an increasing interest through the few past decades; this is mainly due to the pressure to reduce different costs of the supply chain. Vertical collaboration is the integration made through the... more
Collaboration in supply chains has received an increasing interest through the few past decades; this is mainly due to the pressure to reduce different costs of the supply chain. Vertical collaboration is the integration made through the supply chain of a single organization between different functions. In this chapter, vertical collaboration is explained and a review of related work is presented. In this context, six supply chain management integrated problems are considered; the location routing problem, the inventory location routing problem, the production distribution problem, the inventory routing problem, the production scheduling-vehicle routing problem, and the production inventory-distribution-routing problem. The paper provides a detailed taxonomy based on decision making level (strategic, tactical, and operational), supply chain structure, modeling approach, objectives and decision variables, solution approach, contributions, and applications. The review covers the period from 2008 to 2014 to provide the recent trends in this research area. The production-inventory-distribution-routing problem was selected as a comprehensive representative of vertical collaboration in supply chains. The problem addresses joint optimization of production lot-sizing, inventory management, distribution planning and vehicle routing with the objective of minimizing the total costs of all the included functions and satisfying service levels. Insights and framework are given for this problem with potential research directions to fill the current research gaps.