Optimizing the configuration of personalized service supply chain under resource orchestration mechanism

Abstract

Since customers’ demands usually exhibit a greater degree of diversity and personalization, and suppliers’ service capacity fluctuates dynamically, the disruptions of service supply chain (SSC) will occur when focal firm cannot find appropriate suppliers that completely meet customers’ requirements at specific time and place. To address this challenge, a novel SSC resource orchestration mechanism has been proposed based on large-scale researches on Chinese service enterprises. From the theoretical lens of viability supply chain framework and resource orchestration theory, the process of service suppliers reconstructing their capabilities has been scrutinized. On this basis, this study formulates the optimization model for SSC configuration which captures a trade-off between profitability and service quality, and adopts the improved NSGA-II algorithm to solve the bi-objective optimization model. For verification and validation of the proposed mechanism and algorithm, the presented methodology has been applied in a real-business case of a Chinese leading transportation technologies consulting service enterprise. This study demonstrates that a more flexible and profitable SSC can be reached in the changing business environment through the reconstruction of suppliers’ capability and the reconfiguration of the entire supply chain. Besides, all the participants can benefit from the configuration schemes since the interest-sharing strategy has been considered in the optimization model.