Analysis of Mathematical Programming Applications in Supply Chain Management of Manufacturing Enterprises

Abstract

This paper focuses on a current topic of supply chain management and operations research which serves as a tool manufacturing enterprises to cope with pressure put on them by continuously changing market conditions and global economy itself. Paper presents results of research conducted on sample file of Slovak manufacturing enterprises. The main aim of this paper is to explore the extent of utilization of mathematical programming as optimization methods in production practice in Slovakia to analyse possible relationship between enterprise’s size and used optimizing method. Representativeness of the sample file was confirmed by application of Pearson ́s chi-squared test (χ2 test) due to criterion of enterprise’s size. The results of this research have an implication for business practice and may serve managers in their decision-making process. In managerial practice enterprises have to deal with many different problems concerning their supply chains. The majority of them can be resolved using mathematical programming.