Recent advances in supply chain costs-based importance measures in supply chain systems reliability

Background: In recent years, the cost is becoming one of the biggest obstacles for the effective operation of supply chain. It is increasingly urgent to minimize the cost and optimize the supply chain system. However, importance measures have been little used in it as a research focus in solving the optimization problems. Methods: With respect to the foregoing, this paper combines the reliability, importance measures and cost issues to improve the supply chain. Supply chain costs can be divided into three classes: design cost, manufacturing cost, and inventory cost. Results: Then importance measures based on the costs are given and demonstrated in a case study. Results show that the optimal system and minimal cost can be obtained by focusing on the important parts in supply chain operation. Conclusion: The importance order and the key elements identification are helpful to increase the operational efficiency of the supply chain and provide effective methods for improving the supply chain management. © 2019 Bentham Science Publishers.