Latest posts

How to secure your supply chain – 3/7

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

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


How to secure your supply chain – 2/7

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.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


How to secure your supply chain – 1/7

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.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


How to secure your supply chain

“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.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


Airports – vital to supply chains?

Is the temporary shut-down of Bangkok’s two international airports important in a supply chain perspective? So far, the issue has been stranded tourists, maybe as many as 100000. Not only that, air freight will also be impacted, but why is this important?

Posted in THIS and THAT


Practical Supply Chain Risk Management

Supply chain trends such as offshore manufacturing, global outsourcing and lean sourcing continue to impact the supply chain and supply chain risk management has taken center stage as a vital risk management priority.

Posted in THIS and THAT


Supply chain disruptions by pirates

Yesterday I cited the press release of the Norwegian shipping company Odfjell, which no longer will send their tankers through the Suez Canal, but take the long route around Africa instead, hoping to avoid being hijacked by pirates. Maybe just in the nick of time.

Posted in THIS and THAT


Somali pirates forcing ships to make detour

Shipping companies are now seriously considering avoiding the Suez Canal and take the long route around Africa instead. One Norwegian shipping company, Odfjell, has already started sending their tankers on the long route.

Posted in THIS and THAT


Thanks to Somali pirates no Santa is coming this year?

Shipping companies are now seriously considering avoiding the Suez Canal and take the long route around Africa instead. The Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet reports that such move could endanger this year’s Christmas, with presumed presents not arriving on time to be sold from stores.

Posted in THIS and THAT


Business Intelligence – a key element in Supply Chain Risk Management

In my postings on supply chain risk and supply chain disruption, there is one thing that I have overlooked: Business Intelligence. Well, not overlooked, maybe, but underestimated, because Business Intelligence is a key component in mitigating supply chain risk and also a key component in recovering critical information after a supply chain disruption.

Posted in THIS and THAT


TRB 2009 – are you going there, too?

Are you presenting at the TRB 2009, the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting? Below is the abstract of a paper I will present at TRB2009, the Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting, in Washington, DC, 11-15 January 2009.

Posted in THIS and THAT


The Supply Chain Network Project

Do you want to keep in touch with all aspects of the global supply chain network? SCN is a network of people, a network of ideas and information, a means for designing, building, improving and managing your physical network and a source for services to facilitate your network.

Posted in BLOGS and WEBSITES


Risk – the dark side of supply chain management

“Supply Chain Risk – the dark side of supply chain management” is a guest lecture I recently gave at Molde University College in Molde, Norway. Hopefully it can be of use to both students at practioners alike.

Posted in my PUBLIC PRESENCE


Conferences in Transportation and Supply Chain

Looking for a list of conferences in supply chain and transportation-related topics? By accident, I came across this list on a website called interorganisational.org. Not only does it feature calls for papers for conferences, but also calls for papers for academic journals, complete with abstract or paper submission deadline.

Posted in THIS and THAT


Sparse transportation networks – a nightmare

Sparse transportation networks, like in Norway, are a recipe for supply chain disruptions. Furthermore, unlike in regions with a dense transportation network, supply chain management in a sparse network setting comes close to being business continuity management.

Posted in THIS and THAT


A Future Research Agenda for Supply Chain Risk

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.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


Strategies for managing risk in multinational corporations

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.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


Global Supply Chain Risk Management

Finally it appears that someone has developed an easy, hands-on, not-so-academic and straightforward approach to global supply chain risk management. 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.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS


Can Somali pirates bring down supply chains?

The BBC news this morning ran an interesting and worrying story: Shipping companies are considering to avoid The Somali coast and Suez canal on their way to Europe and rather take the long route around Africa. That will make for an extra lead time of 3-4 weeks, but this could mean a temporary supply chain disruption for Europe, while the new lead times settle in.

Posted in THIS and THAT


International Transport Economics Conference 2009

The International Transport Economics Conference (ITrEC) 2009 will be held during June 15-16, 2009, at the University of Minnesota. If you haven’t already done so, make sure to bookmark this conference in your calendar.

Posted in THIS and THAT


ARTICLES and PAPERS
Supply Chain Risk and Vulnerability in Indonesia
Indonesia. 17000 islands spread over a distance of 6000 kilometres. Mega-cities and remote desolate [...]
The future of SCRM
What is the potential future for supply chain risk management? That is what Abhijeet Ghadge, Samir D[...]
BOOKS and BOOK CHAPTERS
Book Review: Supply Chain Risk
This book, Supply Chain Risk, is from 2004 and edited by Clare Brindley of the Manchester Metropolit[...]
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[...]
REPORTS and WHITEPAPERS
A risky business? The top 10 challenges of offshoring
Organisations embarking on offshoring face multiple challenges; many of which can be extremely daunt[...]
Vulnerable or valuable supply chain?
More than a year old now, but still holding not so few words of wisdom is the Pricewaterhouse Cooper[...]