Co-Design of Supply Chain Network and Subassembly Planning Considering the Reconfiguration of Supply Chain Structure for Factory-in-a-Box Manufacturing

As the market demand becomes more diversified and dynamic, the requirements for manufacturing systems feature a high degree of flexibility, low cost, low volume, and short delivery times. One emerging way for such flexible manufacturing is so-called “factory-in-a-box,” by which production modules are installed in a container and transported by a vehicle. The factory-in-a-box manufacturing poses a unique challenge to manufacturing supply chain network since the ease of supply chain reconfiguration when the vehicle moves to a different production site has become a major concern in addition to transportation cost and delivery time. The supply chain design is further complicated by the fact that it is coupled with subassembly planning in manufacturing, which determines appropriate subassembly modules assigned to suppliers. As such, it is critical to understand the interaction between supply chain network reconfigurability and subassembly planning. This paper develops a model using a set of decision variables to jointly characterize the topology of supply chain network and subassembly planning. A binary nonlinear programming model has been developed for the concurrent optimization of subassembly planning and supply chain network with the consideration of reconfiguration of the supply chain structure. One numerical case study was conducted to demonstrate the proposed model by providing a quantitative guideline of reconfiguring supply chain network when the final production site (on a vehicle) changes locations.