Integrated and Traceable Supply Chain in One-of-a-Kind Production

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It is recognized that the markets of the 21st century have placed increasing demands on manufacturers to be able to quickly deliver a great variety of customized products across the globe. One-of-a-kind production (OKP) with its significant features of mass customization and concurrent engineering has been specifically developed to meet this challenge. The OKP paradigm and its methodology are particularly applicable to manufacturing businesses in developed countries such as Canada: these companies are often small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that produce customized products in very small (or single) batch sizes. Improvement of production efficiency and reduction of costs are critical for these SMEs to compete with large manufacturing companies (often conglomerates) overseas. Based on our initial investigations, an integrated, reliable and traceable supply chain can dramatically reduce production costs and improve production efficiency for OKP companies or SMEs. The long-term goals of this research program are the advancement of OKP planning and control theory and the training of highly qualified personnel to help Canadian manufacturing companies, particularly SMEs, to improve their production efficiency and customer satisfaction, and reduce costs and lead times. The short-term objectives are (1) OKP supply chain integration, (2) risk prediction and management of the OKP supply chain, and (3) models and methods for OKP supply chain traceability. The proposed research will generate concepts, definitions, models, algorithms, heuristics and system frameworks for the development of a novel manufacturing paradigm, simply called an OKP system, that is able to mass produce customized products in an integrated, reliable and traceable supply chain. Moreover, highly qualified personnel will be trained as academics or practitioners in the multidisciplinary area of manufacturing systems, engineering optimization, computer simulation and modeling, and management science.