Memetic Algorithm with Local Neighborhood Search for Bottleneck Supplier Identification in Supply Networks

Abstract

With the development of lean manufacturing and economic globalization, supply networks increasingly become complex and large-scale, within which thousands of firms inter-depend with each other. Due to these increasing inter-dependencies, disruption of a quite few critical suppliers, namely bottleneck suppliers, can induce high loss to a supply network and even make the whole network dysfunction. Identification of bottleneck suppliers is significantly important for supply network risk management. Thus, in this article, a method based on a memetic algorithm with local neighborhood search (MALNS) is proposed to identify bottleneck suppliers in a two-stage supply network. Firstly, a model based on multipartite network is designed to describe the product supply-demand relations between multiple manufacturers and suppliers, which considers the different roles of manufacturer and supplier and differentiates the products that suppliers supply. To assess the loss caused by supplier disruptions, two performance metrics of supply networks, average product availability rate and manufacturer functioning rate, are presented. Then, a MALNS-based method is proposed to identify bottleneck suppliers, i.e., suppliers whose disruption will decrease both performance metrics most greatly. Finally, a case study based on a real automobile supply network is presented to validate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed method.