Blog Archives

Posts inspired by whatever else I find interesting

Cutting costs or cutting risks?

Obviously, cutting risks and cutting costs are two strategies that are often detrimental to each other, and after cutting costs simply for the sake of reducing operational costs, you may have to cut corners in order to cut risks.

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Christchurch earthquake and transportation

Christchurch, New Zealand, has been hit by an earthquake. How will the city recover? Will they be able to pull together the resources and quickly return to business as usual? I believe they will.

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The ISCRiM Newsletter 1/2010

Published 2-3 times a year by the International Supply Chain Risk Management Network, the ISCRiM newsletter has the latest on published articles, research reports, PhD theses, weblinks, and some buzz from the people who work with supply chain risk research for a living.

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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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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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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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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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Downgrades are upgrades

“Suitemates” is the big new marketing campaign by Kinaxis. Episode 3 of a six-episode short video series 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. Their software is so full of bugs that even upgrading doesn’t fix it, it just adds new errors, that require new upgrades, that still won’t work because…

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Suites – what suites?

Today they take us back to their company presentation after their merger, announcing the new names of their software suites, where absolutely none of the names or ludicrous acronyms they come up with make any sense.

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ERP consultants: A nightmare

Suitemates is produced by Kinaxis, a Canada-based company that delivers RapidResponse, an award-winning on-demand supply chain management tool. In Suitemates they poke fun at what they call Big ERP and how supply chain consulting companies supposedly work.

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Supply Chain Risk Webinars

I do have a lecture on supply chain risk, but not in webinar style. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider.

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Less cost and less disruptions?

If you know that your shipment will arrive late, you are perhaps less concerned with not being just in time? The Danish shipping giant Maersk has halved its top cruising speed over the last two years, thus cutting fuel costs, cutting emissions and perhaps cutting disruptions costs, too?

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2nd Supply Chain Risk Management Seminar

The main focus of this seminar is how leading companies are tackling the many critical risks to their supply chains which they are facing in this current time of crisis and economic instability.

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Resilience Lessons from the Haiti Earthquake

The recent earthquake in Haiti is a poignant reminder of how vulnerable a country is when it is facing disaster on a grand scale.

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If the UK goes cold, blame me

The BBC reports that National Grid has issued its latest “balancing alert” on gas supplies. Unusually cold weather has hit big Norwegian gas field Ormen Lange and the Nyhamna gas processing centre, hitting North Sea gas flows from Norway at a time of increased consumption.

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No grit No roads No show?

No grit means no cleared roads means no one able to get anywhere and a no-show of people everywhere. Employees not coming to work because of extreme weather will cost the UK £12,000,000,000,000.

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ARTICLES and PAPERS
Community resilience in times of disaster
Can public-private partnerships improve community resilience? This question is posed in Leveraging p[...]
Risk & Vulnerability
Supply chains are increasingly becoming complex webs and networks and are no longer straightforward [...]
BOOKS and BOOK CHAPTERS
Book review: Cost-Benefit Analysis: Theory and Application
I really enjoyed reading Cost-Benefit Analysis: Theory and Application by Tefvik Nas.  I used this b[...]
Can your business take a blow?
Are you prepared for whatever mishaps your business throws at you? If you're not, you better start l[...]
REPORTS and WHITEPAPERS
Will Climate Change have an impact on transportation?
Many studies have already examined the potential impacts of climate change on broad sectors of the e[...]
The supply chain of the future
Many global supply chains are not equipped to cope with the world we are entering. Most were enginee[...]
from HERE and THERE
How to count money spent on road investments
Following up yesterday's post on why one of the world’s richest countries has one of the world’s wor[...]
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[...]