Category Archives: ARTICLES and PAPERS

Posts inspired by academic articles I have read

Vulnerability in business relationships

Revised on: 2015-09-23

Today’s journal article review is an article by professor Göran Svensson from Halmstad University in Sweden. He is one of the first academic contributors to the field of supply chain risk, beginning around 1999. Vulnerability in business relationships was published in 2004, and it came to my attention because a lot of the literature on managaging an mitigating supply chain risk focuses on building relationships with suppliers. Trust and dependence are major components of a dyadic business relationship and therefore, important to discuss.

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Managing Disruption Risks in the Supply Chain – the DRISC model

Revised on: 2015-09-09

It is not often that I find a PhD dissertation that is excellently written and a joy to read, keeping my attention from beginning to end. The DRISC model by Ulf Paulsson is such a dissertation and it has been a great inspiration and a great reference to me. Ulf Paulsson is an Associate Professor at the Division of Engineering Logistics at Lund University, Sweden and he is the Editor of the ISCRIM Newsletter, which is how I came across the dissertation in the first place. What makes this dissertation so special?

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Interpreting Resiliency

Revised on: 2015-09-03

In yesterday’s post on Freight Transportations Systems Resilience I mentioned Kelly Pitera and her Master’s thesis, Interpreting Resiliency: An Examination of the Use of Resiliency Strategies within the Supply Chain and Consequences for the Freight Transportation System, where she explored and evaluated resiliency efforts currently being used by importing enterprises, focusing on goods movement within the supply chain. Today I will take a closer look at his thesis since it comes up with a novel and conceptually intriguing perspective on strategies for supply chain resilience.

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What is Freight Transportation System Resilience?

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Revised on: 2015-09-09

Resilience is the new buzzword in Supply Chain Management, and has slowly trickled into transportation research as well. When attending the TRB Annual Meeting in January this year, to present my paper on Supply Chain Disruptions in Sparse Transportation Networks, I came across a couple of interesting papers which I will review in my upcoming posts. First up is Structuring a definition of Resilience in the Freight Transportation System by Chilan Ta, Kelly Pitera and Anne Goodchild from the University of Washington, Seattle, WA. What I enjoyed with this paper was their holistic approach towards resilience, including all major stakeholders.

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Less supply chain disruptions with vendor managed inventory?

Revised on: 2015-09-03

How does a traditional supply chain compare to a vendor managed inventory supply chain when it comes to performance during disruptions? In her 2005 paper, The impact of transportation disruptions on supply chain performance, Martha Wilson found out, not surprisingly, that vendor managed inventory (VMI) fares better than the traditional retail managed inventory, even when looking at the whole supply chain: Raw Material Supplier – Tier 2 Supplier – Tier 1 Supplier – Warehouse – Retailer – Customer.

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Supply Chain Security – an overview and research agenda

Revised on: 2015-09-09

Supply chain security is one of many components of a company’s overall supply chain risk management, and has grown in importance for many years already. Nonetheless, it’s only recently that I have come across and begun to look at it from an academical point of view. Today’s post is a critique of the journal article that cited the IBM white paper Investing in Supply Chain Security – Reaping Collateral Benefits, which I posted about 3 days ago. In Supply chain security: an overview and research agenda, Zachary Williams, Jason Lueg and Stephen Le May claim to have found four approaches in the literature on how organizations approach supply chain security.

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How to secure your supply chain – 7/7

Revised on: 2015-09-02

This is the final part of my translation of the Swedish book “Säkra företagets flöden”, published in 1999 by the Swedish Emergency Management Agency. Although 10 years hold, much of this handbook still holds true. This article takes a closer look at suppliers, and the current development towards more and more specialized components and tailor-made systems, where the supplier becomes maybe more important than the purchasing company.

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How to secure your supply chain – 6/7

Revised on: 2015-09-02

Although going on 10 years hold, much of this handbook still holds true. I found it by accident when reading a PhD thesis from Sweden on supply chain risk and the translation of the Swedish book “Säkra företagets flöden”, published in 1999 by the Swedish Emergency Management Agency was supposed to be my Christmas pastime. However, other things took priority, but now it’s time to finish this project. Today’s post will taker a closer look at the transportation system itself.

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How to secure your supply chain – 5/7

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Revised on: 2015-09-02

With this post, number five in a series translated from the Swedish book “Säkra företagets flöden”, I am nearing a conclusion. I found the book by accident when reading a PhD thesis on supply chain risk from Sweden. There will be three more posts, including this one, seven in total. Previously, I portrayed the different categories of buyer-supplier relationships, and how they influence supply chain disruptions. Today I will look at sourcing strategies and how to or may how not to source.

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How to secure your supply chain – 4/7

Revised on: 2015-09-02

My previous post was part three of a series based on the Swedish business continuity handbook titled “Säkra företagets flöden” and looked at a checklist or questionnaire that can be used in assessing particular disruption risks in your suppliers or sub-contractors. Today’s post will deal with different buyer- supplier relationships and how they can be categorized, and how such relationships may or may not contribute to supply chain disruptions.

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How to secure your supply chain – 3/7

Revised on: 2015-09-02

Today’s post is part three of my continuing journey through the Swedish handbook titled “Säkra företagets flöden” or”Secure the company’s flows”, as I have translated it. This part takes a look at a checklist or questionnaire that can be used in assessing disruptions risks in your suppliers or sub-contractors. The following checklist is not meant to be exhaustive, but serves as a gateway or teaser towards asking more in-depth questions, specifically suited towards your own company in the issues you yourself are facing.

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How to secure your supply chain – 2/7

Revised on: 2015-09-02

Continuing my previous post, which talked about raising the awareness towards disruption risks in general, today’s post will take a closer look at how to analyze your suppliers for potential disruption risks, and what questions that need to be asked to gain more insight into your supply chain. In essence, this post will provide some starting points for supply chain risk analysis. This the 2nd post in a series that reviews and translates into English some of the content in the book “Säkra företagets flöden” or “Secure the company’s flows” as I have translated it. The book was published in 1999 by the Swedish Emergency Management Agency.

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How to secure your supply chain – 1/7

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Revised on: 2015-09-02

This the first post in a series that reviews and translates into English some of the content in the book “Säkra företagets flöden” or “Secure the company’s flows” as I have translated it. The book was published in 1999 by the Swedish Emergency Management Agency and is a handbook in Business Continuity Management and Supply Chain Risk Management. This post will take a general look at what can cause a disruption to normal business operations and which question every business should ask when starting to analyze its own risk situation.

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How to secure your supply chain

Revised on: 2011-01-06

“Secure the company’s flows” or “Säkra företagets flöden” in the original Swedish language is the title of a handbook published in 1999 by the Swedish Emergency Management Agency, the Swedish eqivalent to FEMA in the USA. Although 10 years hold, much of this handbook still holds true. I found it by accident when reading a PhD thesis from Sweden on supply chain risk. This handbook deals with Business Continuity Management much more than just supply chain disruptions, but is well worth a read…for those capable of the Swedish language. For those not so versed in Swedish, in the coming days I will translate and highlight some of the topics covered in the book.

Reference

Giertz, E., et al. (1999) Säkra företagets flöden, Silfgruppen, Stockholm. ISBN 91 7097 056-4

Related

husdal.com: How to secure your supply chain – 1/7
husdal.com: How to secure your supply chain – 2/7
husdal.com: How to secure your supply chain – 3/7
husdal.com: H ow to secure your supply chain – 4/7
husdal.com: How to secure your supply chain – 5/7
husdal.com: How to secure your supply chain – 6/7
husdal.com: How to secure your supply chain – 7/7

A Future Research Agenda for Supply Chain Risk

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Revised on: 2015-09-08

When Manuj and Mentzer (2008) wrote their article titled Global Supply Chain Risk Management, they used Ghoshal (1987) Global Strategy: An Organizing Framework for developing sources of risk and Jüttner, Peck and Christopher (2003) Supply Chain Risk Management: Outlining an Agenda for Future Research for developing risk mitigation strategies. However, THAT is not why I am taking a closer look at the latter today. What brought said paper to my attention were the two simple figures it used. Why are the figures so striking?

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Strategies for managing risk in multinational corporations

Revised on: 2015-09-03

In my post two days ago, reviewing the article by Manuj and Mentzer (2008) titled Global Supply Chain Risk Management, I mentioned that they cited a paper by Ghoshal (1987) titled Global Strategy: An Organizing Framework as one of their references for listing risk management strategies. Today, I will take a closer look at that paper. The word “supply chain” doesn’t even appear once in Ghoshal’s paper, but why is this paper so interesting in a supply chain risk perspective?

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Global Supply Chain Risk Management

Revised on: 2015-09-09

Finally it appears that someone has developed an easy, hands-on, not-so-academic and straightforward approach to global supply chain risk management: Global Supply Chain Risk Management by Ila Manuj and John T Mentzer. When I say finally, it is because it is not often that I come across papers that have fully grasped the concept of supply chain risk management and made it look so easy at the same time. In their very recent paper they develop a global supply chain framework and a five-step approach for global supply chain risk management and mitigation.

Postscript: As I later discovered, there are in fact two separate articles, by the same authors, Ila Manuj and John T. Mentzer, with almost the same title, published the same year, 2008, in two different journals. Click here for Global Supply Chain Risk Management Strategies by Manuj and Mentzer.

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Avoid Supply Chain Breakdown – Tailored Risk Management

Revised on: 2015-09-03

In my previous post on Ericsson versus Nokia – the now classic case of supply chain disruption I mentioned that Ericsson’s and Nokia’s different handling of the same supply chain disruption has become somewhat of a textbook case of how ill-handled disruptions can make or break a company’s existence. Here it is again, as the introduction to an article on tailored risk management by Sunil Chopra and ManMohan S. Sodhi from 2004. The essence of the article is that by understanding the variety and interconnectedness of supply chain risks, managers can tailor balanced and effective risk-reduction strategies for their companies.

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Ericsson versus Nokia – the now classic case of supply chain disruption

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Revised on: 2015-11-20

When faced with a supply chain disruption, proactive and reactive supply chain risk management can in fact make or break a company’s existence. One of the most famous (or rather infamous) cases is the fire at the Philips microchip plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2000, which simultaneously affected both Nokia and Ericsson. However, both companies took a very different approach toward the incident, and in hindsight, clearly displayed how to and how not to handle supply chain disruptions.

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A new supply chain perspective: The supply chain life cycle

Revised on: 2015-09-09

It is not often that I come across papers with a holistic view of the supply chain as a living and dynamic system. However, the introductory chapters of Architecture for supply chain analysis and methodology for quantitative measurement of supply chain flexibility, a 2001 PhD thesis by Wei Deng Solvang, explore the topic of supply chains having a typical 5-phase life cycle. I find that highly interesting. Not only is a supply chain a network of interlinked actors, but the links (or relations, if you so wish) are constantly changing, with new ones appearing and old ones dissipating.

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