Category Archives: THIS and THAT

Posts inspired by whatever else I find interesting

Cutting costs or cutting risks?

Revised on: 2011-03-17

One of the blogs I like to browse from time to time, particularly when looking for topics related to resilience and business, is the Enterprise Resilience Management Blog. Written by Stephen F. DeAngelis, a technologist who creates businesses at the intersection of technology and major business and global trends, I like it because he takes bits and pieces from a variety of online, i.e. Internet sources and produces extensively long posts, a skill I have yet to learn as far as this blog goes. Every now and then, actually more than now and then recently, the blog has posts on supply chain issues and today I stumbled upon a June 2010 post on supply chain risk management, where he explains how cost-cutting can be the supply chain’s worst enemy. This is the first time I have spent some considerable time on DeAngelis’ blog, and it is not going to be the last time.

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Christchurch earthquake and transportation

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Revised on: 2015-09-12

Christchurch, New Zealand, has been hit by an earthquake. Having spent some time living there myself, I can only imagine the damage to the buildings familiar to me, as I scour the news for the most recent photos and reports. Judging from the news images and videos of the Christchurch earthquake, the damage seems severe enough in places. 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, because some years ago New Zealand started a project called “Resilient organisations“. Will it work? This is the ultimate test, perhaps sooner than they planned.

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The ISCRiM Newsletter 1/2010

Revised on: 2011-03-17

If you are a researcher, a student, a professor and if you have an academic interest in Supply Chain Risk Management or if you simply would like to know the latest research that is going on in this exciting field, the ISCRiM Newsletter is an indispensable resource. Published 2-3 times a year by the International Supply Chain Risk Management Network the 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?

Revised on: 2011-03-10

How quickly time flies when you’re having fun. And fun it is, watching “Suitemates“, the big new marketing campaign by Kinaxis. Canada-based supply chain software provider Kinaxis has just released this weeks episode, number five of a six-episode short video series that tells the fictional story of BILK Moore – the merger between two ERP companies. Driven by greed for more profit and ever more profit, the two respective CEOs end up behind bars for fraud and unethical business conduct, after selling their (useless) software for an exorbitant price, while throwing in extra (and equally useless) bonuses and freebies to make their customers think they’re getting a lot, when in fact they’re not.

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Volcanic ash cloud – really a surprise?

Revised on: 2015-09-12

Last week a volcanic eruption on Iceland took Europe’s civil aviation authorities by total surprise, prompting them to shut down air traffic over much of Europe for almost an entire week. An unprecedented event? Yes. Was it a surprise? Maybe Yes, maybe No. Should authorities have seen it coming? Yes. Then why wasn’t Europe prepared? On the operational level, among air traffic controllers, the awareness of the widespread impacts of a volcanic ash cloud from Iceland has been there for quite some time. They have indeed planned for it and there have been regular exercises.

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Using social media in a crisis

6 Replies

Revised on: 2015-09-09

Sometimes the timing of Internet launches is just right. And for Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) the timing of the launch of it’s Facebook page could not have been better planned. It was launched on April 14, the day before the volcanic ash cloud paralyzed both European and much of global air traffic. Now SAS could fully utilize the power of social media to keep its passengers informed on the latest developments, and answer all sorts of questions from stranded travelers. In all the confusion about lack of information from airlines, maybe SAS will come out as a winner?

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Sweet Seduction

Revised on: 2011-03-10

Time for my weekly reminder: “Suitemates“, the big new marketing campaign by Kinaxis. Canada-based supply chain software provider Kinaxis has just released episode 4 of a six-episode short video series that tells the fictional story of BILK Moore – the merger between two ERP companies. In Suitemates, the two respective CEOs end up behind bars for fraud and unethical business conduct, after using seductive persuasion tactics to have customers sign whatever deal with whatever small print, and before they know it, they’re sucked in and hooke(re)d (my pun) on Bilk-Moore’s state of the art/crap ERP software.

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Volcanic Ash Cloud Day 5

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Revised on: 2015-09-12

Today is Day Five of the infamous Iceland volcanic ash cloud disruption. What just a week ago was a highly improbable scenario has settled in to become a daily routine…almost. Was this really one of these damned (Pardon my French) Black Swan Events…or was it a Predictable Surprise we should have been aware of? 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. Perhaps it should have been. For sure it will be – from now on.

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Can we do without air traffic?

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Revised on: 2011-03-22

Travelers and businesses are waking up to a fourth day of no air traffic in Europe, and a fourth day of stranded air passengers seeking whatever means they can find to reach their destination, or reaching any place between where they are stuck and where they were supposed to go. As I said in my post yesterday, perhaps it’s time to re-learn the value of slow travel, and perhaps we don’t need to go anywhere as fast as possible or have our goods delivered in an instant. If this lasts on, it may lead to a change in our way of thinking. Seriously, what would happen if this supply chain disruption because of the volcanic ash cloud were to go on for a week, a month, a year?

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Business continuity 101

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Revised on: 2011-03-22

This is the 3rd day with severe transportation and thus supply chain disruptions all over Europe, due to the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland, forcing travellers, cargo shippers and logistics providers to seek alternative solutions. In essence this is a very practical lesson in business continuity. Who would have thought that a volcano eruption in country that until recently and before the IceSave dispute did not make any headline news could create such havoc with widespread impacts? I certainly did not. Nonetheless, it is also a lesson in business creativity: German car rental company Sixt shows how.

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Today’s transport disruption: volcanoes

Revised on: 2015-09-12

I haven’t had a “In the news” post for quite some time, but 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 causing an ash cloud to drift into European airspace. The eruption under a glacier in the Eyjafjallajoekull area of Iceland is the second in Iceland in less than a month, but this is the first time it has affected air traffic beyond its own borders. While air is only one of the four modes of transportation for supply chains, it is probably the mode that has the most expensive implications because it is often used for high-value goods.

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Downgrades are upgrades

Revised on: 2011-03-10

Time for episode three of “Suitemates“, the big new marketing campaign by Kinaxis, a Canada-based supply chain software provider . Suitemates is a six-episode short video series that tells 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, after making sure 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…well, you get the picture, right?

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Suites – what suites?

Revised on: 2010-04-22

I have been swamped with work this week. In fact, so swamped that I forgot to watch episode two of “Suitemates“, the big new marketing campaign by Kinaxis, a Canada-based business that delivers Rapid Response, a supply chain management tool. Suitemates is a six-episode short video series that tells the fictional story of a merger between two ERP companies and how the two CEOs ended up in jail for fraud and unethical business conduct, after luring their customers into buying more and more of a software that never delivers what it promises.

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ERP consultants: A nightmare

Revised on: 2010-04-22

I’m an academic … a transport economist who happened to stumble into supply chain management. Actually … I’m a civil engineer by training who stumbled into academia, and first and foremost this is an academic blog, dedicated to the dissemination of research on supply chain risk. Little do I know, perhaps, of the real world of supply chain issues, even less perhaps do I know of supply chain consultants and how they trap their clients into buying whole suites of problem solving software packages I didn’t know existed. Maybe I should count myself lucky for not having been fooled by these two ERP executives. They aren’t so lucky themselves, in fact, as they end up in prison for being what they are.

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Supply Chain Risk Webinars

Revised on: 2015-09-12

I’ve never given much though to webinars as a means of communication, as blogging is my force, although I do have a lecture on supply chain risk, but not in webinar style. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider. I just recently became aware of WTG Webinar, a website that caters to the business community and serves webinars by highly acclaimed speakers on management and supply chain issues, thus bringing the world of thought leadership and insider industry knowledge directly to your desktop. So, what’s in store at WTG Webinar?

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Less cost and less disruptions?

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Revised on: 2015-11-07

One of the regular readers of my blog alerted me to an article in the NY Times titled Slow Trip Across Sea Aids Profit and Environment. As it turns out 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? After all, if you know that your shipment will arrive late, you are perhaps less concerned with not being just in time?

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2nd Supply Chain Risk Management Seminar

Revised on: 2015-09-11

Do you remember the 1st Supply Chain Risk Management Seminar Barcelona 2009? I made a post about it a year ago. The sequel is scheduled to take place this year, on October 2oth and 21st, as before, in Barcelona, Spain. This seminar provides a unique opportunity to discuss the most pressing issues today through a series of case studies, informative presentations, workshops and interactive panel discussions and is maybe the place for professionals in supply chain risk to meet and share experiences with other experts. This year’s programme looks even better than last year.

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Resilience Lessons from the Haiti Earthquake

Revised on: 2011-03-22

The recent earthquake in Haiti is a poignant reminder of how vulnerable a country is when it is facing disaster on a grand scale. To me, it is a reminder that that while natural disasters are not man-made, the aftermaths and consequences of the disasters often are. Disasters like this call for resilience in all parts of the community, including the infrastructure, the supply chains and society as a whole. Some of the older posts on this blog , and which do not see daylight too often may shed some light on this.

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If the UK goes cold, blame me

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Revised on: 2015-09-11

Still thinking about my recent post on the importance of security of supply, I first added salt and grit to the list of critical supplies for the UK. Now you can throw in gas, too. The BBC reports that National Grid has issued its latest “balancing alert” on gas supplies. These alerts are a signal to the market to increase gas supplies, and encourage electricity providers to use alternative fuels such as coal. It comes as low temperatures in the UK continued to drive demand, and as outages at the Norwegian gas facility Nyhamna continues. And what is my role here?

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No grit No roads No show?

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Revised on: 2015-09-11

Today’s rather cryptic title reflects on the impacts of the current winter weather, and is a fitting follow-up to yesterday’s article on the security of supply. The UK transportation systems seems to be particularly suffering under heavy loads of snow, and now they seem to be running out of salt and grit for their snowed-in roads. No grit means no cleared roads means no one able to get anywhere and a no-show of people everywhere.

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