Latest posts

One bad apple…

Should an editor care? I believe he should. The editor of this book doesn’t, I simply cannot avoid saying it, and I will explain why. While many of the articles/chapters maintain an excellent academic standard, one of the chapters does not at all hold up to any standard. In fact, it is so bad it makes me wonder how this could have slipped by editorial control?

Posted in BOOKS and BOOK CHAPTERS


Supply Chain Risk – 2009 Lecture

Supply Chain Risk – The dark side of supply chain management. That was the title of a guest lecture I gave at Molde University College last year. This year I was asked to do the same lecture, and I said yes.

Posted in my PUBLIC PRESENCE


Mitigating supply chain disruptions

Christopher Tang from UCLA talks about three strategies for building a robust supply chain, related to (1) supply, (2) product, and (3) demand.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


Supply, Demand, and … “Miscellanous” Risk?

I’ve said so before, sometimes new articles are found in new and unlikely places and here is a chance to learn something new.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


The Box is back!

A year ago the BCC started “The Box” project, where BBC News is following a shipping container for a whole year to tell the story of globalisation. The Box is back where it started

Posted in THIS and THAT


Blog Review: The Kinaxis Blog

Here is a high-quality blog for you, the Kinaxis Blog, or as they put it themselves: The 21st Century Supply Chain. And is it a correct tagline? Yes, I think so. The blog features Kinaxis executives and the occasional guest and provides insights on today’s supply chain trends and issues.

Posted in BLOGS and WEBSITES


Book Review: Managing Supply Chain Risk and Vulnerability

Another book by someone from the ISCRIM gang? No, not this time, or perhaps, yes, after all, since several of the ISCRIM members have contributed to it. The book serves a twofold purpose: 1) Understanding and assessing risk in the supply chain, and 2) Decision making and risk mitigation in the supply chain.

Posted in BOOKS and BOOK CHAPTERS


Book Review: Single Point of Failure

This book shows you how everyone is involved in the supply chain itself, often on several levels at the same time, how the chain is exposed to an infinite number of constantly changing threats; how weak links in the chain represent threats and vulnerabilities, to profitability, continuity, safety and health; and how these threats can be mananged, reduces and eliminated.

Posted in BOOKS and BOOK CHAPTERS


Risk and Uncertainty in Supply Chain Management

I am very much impressed with this extensive literature study on risk and uncertainty within Supply Chain Management. It is – by my judgement – better than Vanany et al. (2009).

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


Critical: Beer Distribution

Beer distribution is a sector that will be highly affected by a supply chain disruption…in the UK. You could even say that beer distribution is part of the UK critical infrastructure.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


Black Swan Events

Black Swan events – should we even bother? These events are practically impossible to predict, so instead of spending our efforts on quantifying and estimating them, maybe we should just let them happen?

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


Graph Theory to the rescue

While I know that Graph Theory has many applications, I never expected to see it in Supply Chain Management.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


Supply Chain Flexibility in Strategic Networks

What fascinates me with this paper are (1) the parameters defining supply chain flexibility: Transparency, Simplicity, Responsiveness/Agility and Security/Reliability, and (2) flexibility potentials: Structural, Technological and Human flexibility potentials.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


Rigorous Risk Management

Risk management is emerging as a key focus area for corporations, especially in terms of the extended supply chain. As they take on expanded responsibilities for global sourcing, supply chain managers are also increasingly required to manage risk in terms of brand, reputation, and ethical sourcing, not just procurement and purchasing risks.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


Supply Chain Risk – Jetzt auch auf Deutsch

Unbeknown to me – or perhaps I really should have known better – there appears to be a large body of supply chain risk research written in German, as I just recently discovered.

Posted in BOOKS and BOOK CHAPTERS


Supply chain risk in turbulent environments

What is supply chain risk in turbulent environments really…simply old wine in new bottles or something profoundly new?

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


Blog Review: Supply Chain Matters

On the Supply Chain Matters blog Bob provides his unbiased views, insights, and reader education into today’s burning topics surrounding the managing and deployment of global supply chains.

Posted in BLOGS and WEBSITES


A conceptual model of Supply Chain Flexibility

What do you do when you find two research papers by the same three authors, published the same year, in two different journals, with almost the same title?

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


Transportation Lifelines and Critical Infrastructure

This is the first paper that sparked my research interest in transportation vulnerability, and what would later become the focus area of my research: the cost of transportation vulnerability and the benefit of transportation reliability.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


Transportation Hazards

The chapter on transportation hazards in the Handbook of Transportation Engineering uses the risk definition by Kaplan and Garrick. It is is concise and to the point and boosts an impressive reference list for further in-depth study.

Posted in BOOKS and BOOK CHAPTERS


ARTICLES and PAPERS
Robust, Rapid, Resilient
The resilience of infrastructure systems can be measured by two dimensions: robustness, the extent o[...]
Mitigating Supply Chain Vulnerability
I'm a quantitative researcher, so I usually shy away from journal articles with too many equations a[...]
BOOKS and BOOK CHAPTERS
Business Continuity in Global Supply Chains
Business Continuity is a crucial ingredient of supply chain management. At the same time, implementi[...]
Jumpstart your VEN adventure
This is a terrific book. As you will know from my post  the other day, I am currently writing a boo[...]
REPORTS and WHITEPAPERS
Vulnerable or valuable supply chain?
More than a year old now, but still holding not so few words of wisdom is the Pricewaterhouse Cooper[...]
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 [...]