Blog Archives

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Avoid Supply Chain Breakdown – Tailored Risk Management

In Chopra and Sodhi (2004) ‘Managing Risk to Avoid Supply-Chain Breakdown’ the first key message is that some mitigation strategies may actually increase risk in some business areas, rather than reduce it.The second key message is that the cost of mitigating or building up a reserve must be balanced against the level of risk.

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Ericsson versus Nokia – the now classic case of supply chain disruption

When faced with a supply chain disruption, proactive and reactive supply chain risk management can in fact make or break a company’s existence.

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Risikohåndtering i forsyningskjeder

Dette er et foredrag jeg holdt på Konferansen Transport og Logistikk 2008, på Gardermoen, 15.oktober 2008. Foredraget “Risikohåndtering i forsyningskjeder” var en del av programmet omkring Logistikkutfordringer. Dette var første gang jeg foredrog om supply chain risk på norsk

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Global Risks 2008 – A prediction come true

It is now frightening to see how true the predictions in this report were in Global Risks 2008, a report prepared by the World Economic Forum. I can only hope that the global financial turmoil does not translate into a global supply chain turmoil.

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Sparse transportation networks and disruptions

The vulnerability of the transportation network as part of the supply chain is of particular interest in countries or regions with sparsely populated areas, and hence, a sparse transportation network, because sparse transportation networks, and thus sparse supply chains, are vulnerable to many different kinds of internal and external risks.

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Identification and simulation of risks in supply networks

The graphical model uses a Bayesian Network to determine the accumulated probability of failure in supply networks. The Bayesian network captures common causal relations of risk events in a supply chain. It is not complete and is not constructed by a proper risk assessment of a special company.

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Drivers of supply chain vulnerability

In her article Drivers of supply chain vulnerability: an integrated framework, Helen Peck identifies four drivers of supply chain vulnerability:Value stream, product or processes,Assets and infrastructure dependencies,Organizations and inter-organizational networks,The Environment.

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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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From the back room to the board room

Supply chain management used to be relegated to the logistics department of businesses and hardly thought of as matters concerning the top-level management. In his 2004 paper, Joseph L. Cavinato points out five sub-networs within the supply chain that need special attention:Physical – the actual movement of goods, shipping and warehousing
Finance, Information, Relations, Innovation.

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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.

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ARTICLES and PAPERS
Single, sole, dual, multiple sourcing?
Old classics never die. While some papers are written, published and quickly forgotten (because no o[...]
Shippers, carriers and disruptions
Both shippers and motor carriers are impacted by travel time variability, but they react differently[...]
BOOKS and BOOK CHAPTERS
Book Review - Fraud Risk
Last year I was approached by Gower Publishing and invited to review their Short Guides to Business [...]
One bad apple...
...spoils the barrel? Yesterday I sat down to prepare a review of this book, Managing Risks in Suppl[...]
REPORTS and WHITEPAPERS
Engineering transportation lifelines
New Zealand is probably not the fist country that comes to mind when thinking of state-of-the-art tr[...]
Hiperos - the Integrated View of Supplier Risk
Supply chains have gone global. No longer are they a point-to-chain of goods flowing from a source t[...]
from HERE and THERE
NOFOMA - The Nordic Logistics Research Network
The Nordic Logistics Research Network (NOFOMA) is a network of Nordic researchers within the field o[...]
4th SCRM Seminar Barcelona 2012
This is an event that should not be missed: The 4th supply chain risk managment seminar in Barcelona[...]