The delivery network is as crucial to a blog as it is to any business. While, it is important to have the right infrastructure, aka cables and connections, what really matters most – as in much of real-life logistics – is delivery speed. Using Amazon CloudFront I can ensure timely and reliable delivery of my blog posts to any reader, anywhere.
Companies should design their portfolios of manufacturing and supplier networks to minimize the total landed-cost risk under different scenarios. The goal should be identifying a resilient manufacturing and sourcing footprint—even when it’s not necessarily the lowest cost one today.
Oh dear…another earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, less than 6 months after the previous disaster, and this time perhaps even more devastating. One thing for sure, this community is having its disaster plans, business continuity measures and its resilience (and resolve) tested to the full
The norm in supply chain management is that variability is detrimental to performance as it causes cost in the form of stock-outs, poor capacity utilisation, and costly buffers. This paper questions this approach and argues that in the light of increasing turbulence a different approach to supply chain management is needed.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, an article that paints 2010 as the year of the catastrophe, and the insurance company Swiss Re estimates that worldwide economic losses from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters reached $222 billion last year – more than triple the losses in 2009.
Sustainability has become a huge buzzword, both in today’s business world and within the broader facets of society. Sustainability has evolved from a perspective and investigation of standalone research in social and environmental areas, through a corporate social responsibility perspective, and towards a convergence of perspectives of sustainability as the triple bottom line.
Resilience is related to three overarching concepts: 1) the vulnerability to unpredictable shocks, 2) the resources or wealth available to a system to help it change, and 3) the internal controllability of relationships in a system, i.e. its rigidity or flexibility.
Every firm with a supply chain that sources globally or operates internationally is exposed to political risks that may be very different from what they are used to domestically. On the international scene such risk can occur suddenly and without warning, not because they cannot be foreseen, but because the firm usually lacks the tools and the knowledge it needs to anticipate and react coherently to political risks.
The supply chain is a firm’s core asset, and perhaps its most important asset, and a firm is only as good or as bad as its supply chain. In this tightly packed 300-page volume Sehgal shows how important it is to have a top-down-driven approach to supply chain management and how important it is to link strategy and execution, from the board room to the very last delivery guy.
This book is about the principles, frameworks and processes that enable the aligning of a company’s specific customer value proposition with its operations strategy.The book is built around 33 rules that cover all possible aspects of supply chain operations and management, and that are placed throughout the eleven chapters of the book.
What are the main change and trend drivers for international supply chains? How will future cross-border supply chains look like? In a study commissioned by the World Customs Organization in 2006, they sought to identify a set of foreseeable drivers of change and their predicted impact on global supply chain management for the next 20 years.
For businesses, failing to comply with customs requirements may result in delayed shipments and serious disruptions in the supply chain. That is why managing customs risk is an integral part of managing global supply chain risks, but customs risks are unfortunately absent from much of the supply chain risk literature.
2010 is history and it is time to look back at my blog and how it has has developed over the last 12 months. 2010 has been a good year, and my blogging goal for 2010 was to double the numbers or key performance indicators from 2009 to 2010. That has been achieved.
Supplier development and supplier performance are dependent on the current relationship life cycle phase. The different stages in the supplier relationship life cycle should play an important role in determining how the supply chain can be improved.
Risk management. Why make it difficult when you can make it easy? This is a handbook and a self-assessment tool that leaves practically no risk uncovered. It’s practical, to the point, not academic at all, and easy to work with. It is perhaps the most hands-on tool around.
This article paints an interesting picture of how supply chain professionals view risk, which risk they perceive and what they do in reaction to these risks.
Material damage and occupational accidents are little understood elements of the overall supply chain. This research looks at the paper industry in Finland and the occupational accidents that occur in the supply chain from the paper mill to the harbor of arrival.
Winter has come early to Europe this year. Very early. Snow has covered much of Europe that hasn’t seen snow in winter for years,with widespread ramifications for all sorts of transport.
Many will probably have heard that When written in Chinese the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity. That is not true.
What defines a crisis? Are there different types of crises? In this article, crises are classified according to how predictable and influenceable they are. This generates four types of crises: Conventional, Unexpected, Intractable and Fundamental crisis.
