A study on reliability of supply chain based on higher order Markov chain

For analyzing the reliability of supply chains, there has been a renewed interest in Markov chain for its attractive properties during the recent years. However, it is far from generalization in terms of formulating a model for the first-order Markov chains. In this paper, from the view of the process of distribution service, a Higher Order Markov chain based method is proposed for analyzing the reliability of supply chains. This paper presents an analytic method for determining the reliability of supply chains for logistics systems. By introducing the model of k -out-of- n : F system in reliability into the studies of supply chains, an evaluation method is suggested, and the reliability indexes of distribution service are obtained.