Yearly Archives: 2010

Book Review: Humanitarian Logistics

Humanitarian supply chains appear to be the rising star within supply chain management, and rightly so. This book matches humanitarian logistics with corporate social responsibility, and that is not only doing good but doing the good rightly.

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WCTR 2010

How do Norwegian freight carriers handle the impacts of transportation disruptions? Are “bad” locations synonymous with “bad” logistics? That is the title of my presentation at the World Conference on Transport Research, WCTR 2010, in Lisbon, Portugal, this week. The answer is No.

Posted in my PUBLIC PRESENCE
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Mitigating Supply Chain Vulnerability

Here is a risk assessment index that can be used to measure the vulnerability of different supply chain structures. While it is apparently straightforward to calculate this risk index, it is subject to a number of assumptions that are not equally straightforward to quantify.

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Humanitarian Relief Supply Chains

The timely delivery of critical goods has always been a crucial element of an effective disaster response, but an effective disaster supply chain is hard to create and maintain. What are the key supply chain factors for improving disaster supply chain management?

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The causes of logistics uncertainty

Logistics uncertainty – a new research strand in supply chain risk research? The logistics uncertainty pyramid is further explored in this paper. The Logistics Uncertainty Pyramid Model is an excellent tool that can be used to identify issues of uncertainty, and then map these issues against their sources, from which improvements plans can be developed.

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How Norwegian freight carriers handle disruptions

How are the supply chains of companies located in sparse transportation networks affected by transportation disruptions? What are typical disruptions in certain locations or for certain types of business, and how do businesses and carriers counter supply chain disruptions?

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State of the art in SCRM?

Supply chain risk management is a process with 5 evolutionary steps, involving no less than 17 underlying principles. The conceptual framework developed in this article clearly identifies the main principles of SCRM and develops a framework and definitions for disturbance, disruption, security, resilience and risk.

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Risk and Vulnerability in Virtual Enterprise Networks

Conceptual in its approach and drawing from other areas of research, this chapter introduces four distinct groups of VENS, namely Constrained, Directed, Limited and Free VEN, and concludes that VEN risk management can and should learn from supply chain risk management.

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What goes into resilience?

Resilience, in essence, is bridging vulnerabilities by honing capabilities. Seldom have I seen such a comprehensive yet to the point article on supply chain resilience that satisfies both academia and the industry at the same time.

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Pay more get more?

“Suitemates” is the big new marketing campaign by Kinaxis. Episode 5 of a six-episode short video series – Double Down – has been just released, telling the fictional story of BILK Moore – the merger between two ERP companies and how their two CEOs end up behind bars for fraud and unethical business conduct

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Volcanic ash cloud – really a surprise?

Icelandic civil aviation authorities have warned Europe for a long time about the potential consequences of a volcanic ash cloud, but no one took them seriously…perhaps we should have.

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Managing risk together

How do risks in supply relationships and and organizational learning play out in risk management when supply chain partners collaborate and develop a learning supply chain?

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Using social media in a crisis

Scandinavian Airlines launched its Facebook page the day before the volcanic ash cloud. Perfect! SAS goes a long way to show how to use social media in a crisis. Perhaps it doesn’t help that much but shows that they care.

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Sweet Seduction

“Suitemates” is the big new marketing campaign by Kinaxis. Episode 4 of a six-episode short video series – Suite Caroline -has been just released, telling the fictional story of BILK Moore – the merger between two ERP companies and how their two CEOs end up behind bars for fraud and unethical business conduct.

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Book Review: Heads in the sand

What is business continuity really? It is the social responsibility to survive that your business has vis-a-vis the community it is located in, the customers it serves and the suppliers that rely on it.

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Volcanic Ash Cloud Day 5

While it is fair to assume that volcanic eruptions are in the business continuity plans of most airlines, it is probably not so fair to assume that 5 days of sudden air traffic restrictions is in the business continuity plans of most companies reliant on frequent air travel.

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Can we do without air traffic?

The German newspaper Die Welt has an interesting, semi-humorous article, looking at the possible impacts of a volcano scenario that lasts one week, one month and one year. Can we do without air traffic?

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Business continuity 101

This is the 3rd day with severe transportation and thus supply chain disruptions all over Europe, due to the volcanic ash clod from Iceland, forcing travellers, cargo shippers and logistics providers to seek alternative solutions. In essence this is a very practical lesson in business continuity.

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Not all risk is risk

The article lists and discusses eight risk definitions, and then suggests an alternative and comprehensive definition that captures all aspects of risk.

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Today’s transport disruption: volcanoes

Now Norway and much of Northern Europe are facing a major supply chain disruption: The shutdown of all air traffic because of a volcano eruption on Iceland. What will happen next?

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ARTICLES and PAPERS
Are supply and demand elasticity a risk?
Why haven't I seen this paper before? And why is it not cited more often? It should. It is called Th[...]
Biting the hand that feeds. All firms are snakes.
'All firms are snakes'. So says Paul D. Cousins in A conceptual model for managing long-term inter-o[...]
BOOKS and BOOK CHAPTERS
Enterprise-wide Risk Management
Coming from a crisis management and business continuity background, I really enjoyed reading Enterpr[...]
Security and continuity of supply
Aah...the intricacies of the English language. Not supply (chain) security, but the security of supp[...]
REPORTS and WHITEPAPERS
Global Risks 2008 - A prediction come true
In my post on Hyper-optimization and supply chain vulnerability: an invisible global risk? I highlig[...]
The Benefits of Investing in Supply Chain Security
With the memory of attacks by Somali pirates still fresh in mind, supply chain security has come to [...]
from HERE and THERE
Will your business byte the dust?
To backup or not to backup? Honestly, you shouldn't even be asking yourself this question. Can you a[...]
Why risk is the buzzword in supply chain management
A new field has emerged with the field of supply chain mangement. It's called supply chain risk. Wha[...]