Supply chain channel structure and disruption management

This dissertation contributes to supply chain management in two important areas: supply chain channel structure and disruption management. For the supply chain channel structure, I investigated both strategic and operational decisions for firms in a supply chain when these firms can invest either in cost reduction or demand-enhancing activities. For the supply chain disruption management, I developed a theoretic framework for managing disruptions in a supply chain, and then applied this framework to the economic production quantity model and a two-stage production and inventory model. Specifically, this dissertation research assists firms in making decisions when they have investment opportunities and also provides important guidelines to firms for recovering their optimal production and inventory schedule when facing disruptions. In short, this research not only develops models to provide managerial insights, but also has potential for developing a decision support system to manage supply chain disruptions.