Hybrid Global Supply Chain Design Considering Product Families and Layered Cellular Design

This paper proposes a new hybrid global supply chain strategy for a global blood sugar manufacturing company. In this approach, products are analyzed based on product families. Product families can share cells across the globe if needed. The results are compared with the host market strategy where three manufacturing plants located in three regions to meet world demand. Manufacturing plants are designed considering layered cellular design approach under stochastic demand. This approach allows three cell types; (1) dedicated cells where each dedicated cell can be used only by one family, (2) shared cells where a cell can be shared by two product families, and (3) remainder cells where a cell can be used by three or more families. The main focus of this paper is to compare both alternatives with respect to number of manufacturing cells and number of machines needed. In this case, number of machines remained the same for both approaches. However, the proposed new approach led to more dedicated cells.