Blog Archives

Finding the right location – minimizing disruption costs

Classical facility location models assume that once optimally located and set up, facilities will operate as planned, smoothly, and without interruption. In reality, though, operations seldom go as planned; interruptions, unscheduled downtime and failures occur every once in a while, with unplanned and unbudgeted disruption costs as a consequence.

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Supply Chain Disruptions – Does location matter?

In regions or countries with sparse transportation networks or few transportation mode choices the structure or design of the supply chain, along with the organization and preparedness become important factors in determining if a company has an favorable or a unfavorable location.

Posted in my PUBLIC PRESENCE
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How to Design Mitigation Capabilities

The severity of supply chain disruptions stems from supply chain design characteristics and supply chain mitigation capabilities: Supply Chain Design: supply chain density,supply chain complexity, node criticality. Supply Chain Mitigation Capability: recovery capability, warning capability.

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Supply chain vulnerability: an invisible global risk?

Supply chain disruption – a global issue? All companies and governments dependent on external suppliers are exposed to the risks of disruption in their supply chain. Even a relatively small supply chain disruption caused by a local risk event may ultimately have consequences across the global economic system.

Posted in REPORTS and WHITEPAPERS
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Supply Chain Risk – Business Continuity Management

Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) has many similarities with Business Continuity Management (BCM). That is why SCRM can and should draw upon BCM for advice. A well-handled supply chain disruption can mean business continuity, while an ill-handled supply chain disruption can mean business dis-continuity.

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A lesson in supply chain disruption: German railways during WWII

Supply chain disruptions have occurred as frequently in the past as today, and particular within the military in war times. A supply chain serving a war machine is under extreme strain, but is an essential element in winning or losing not only a battle or two, but an entire war.

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Location, location, location

How do companies or businesses located in such places adapt to the terms and conditions of their supply chain, how do they hedge against the risk of supply chain disruptions, how are they impacted if there is a disruption?

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Sheffi’s disruption profile

This is tell-tale illustration of what happens when supply chains are disrupted and businesses are impacted. They may, or may not, be able to bounce back to where they were before the event. The survivability of the company depends solely on the company’s resilience towards the disruption.

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Will Climate Change have an impact on transportation?

Transportation professionals should look into the challenges posed by climate change and incorporate current scientific knowledge into the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of transportation systems.

Posted in REPORTS and WHITEPAPERS
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Book Review: The Resilient Enterprise

Excellently written, The Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive Advantage does not necessarily provide concrete solutions for your own business, but it showcases how other companies, successfully or not, handled various crisis situations.

Posted in BOOKS and BOOK CHAPTERS
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How to disrupt a supply chain

A typical supply chain consists of a company with incoming raw materials from an upstream supplier and outgoing products to a downstream customer.
A supply chain is characterized by its locational and organizational design.
There are many potential disruptions to a supply chain.
The potential disruptions may or may not influence locational decisions.
The impact and severity of disruptions depends on both locational vulnerability and organizational adaptability.

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ARTICLES and PAPERS
The causes of logistics uncertainty
Logistics uncertainty - a new research strand in supply chain risk research? So it would seem, as th[...]
Avoid Supply Chain Breakdown - Tailored Risk Management
In my previous post on Ericsson versus Nokia - the now classic case of supply chain disruption I men[...]
BOOKS and BOOK CHAPTERS
Supply Chain Continuity
Many business owners will have come across the term business continuity, and many supply chain owner[...]
Understanding risks in Virtual Enterprise Networks
Today's unstable and highly competitive business environment has created a shift in how enterprises [...]
REPORTS and WHITEPAPERS
Supply chain vulnerability: an invisible global risk?
Supply chain disruption - a global issue? All companies and governments dependent on external suppli[...]
A Decade of Living Dangerously
Do you remember the movie The Year of Living Dangerously with Mel Gibson? Topically unrelated maybe,[...]
from HERE and THERE
Retail Operations in China
In a previous post on the Retail SCM Summit 2011 I mentioned that China as a rising economic powerho[...]
Flexibility and robustness as options to reduce risk and uncertainty
Any company operating in international markets will face a multitude of risks. Acknowledging these r[...]