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.

Posted in THIS and THAT
Tags: , , , , ,

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
Tags: , , , , ,

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
Tags: , ,

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
Tags: , , , , , ,

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
Tags: , ,

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
Tags: , , , , , , ,

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
Tags: , , , ,

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
Tags: , , , , , ,

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
Tags: , , ,

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
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS
Tags: , , , , ,

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.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

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

Posted in my PUBLIC PRESENCE
Tags: ,

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.

Posted in REPORTS and WHITEPAPERS
Tags: , , , , ,

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.

Posted in THIS and THAT
Tags: , , , , , ,

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.

Posted in THIS and THAT
Tags: , , ,

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.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS
Tags: , , , ,

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.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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.

Posted in ARTICLES and PAPERS
Tags: , , ,

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
Tags: , , , , , ,

ARTICLES and PAPERS
Graph Theory to the rescue
Graph Theory. In Supply Chain Management? It's probably 10 years ago since last time I looked at Gra[...]
Risk in supply networks - a tale of principals and agents
Sometimes the most interesting articles are found outside the mainstream journals of ones field, and[...]
BOOKS and BOOK CHAPTERS
Book Review: Humanitarian Logistics
Summer break is over and time for a continuation of my blog posts. Humanitarian Logistics by Ronaldo[...]
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
28 Global Risks in 2015
The  World Economic Forum Global Risks Reports. I first came across them in 2008, when the hyperopti[...]
Will Climate Change have an impact on transportation?
Many studies have already examined the potential impacts of climate change on broad sectors of the e[...]
from HERE and THERE
Pay more get more?
How quickly time flies when you're having fun. And fun it is, watching "Suitemates", the big new mar[...]
Supplier Risk Management
Normally, when finding topics for this blog, it is I who have to seek out and find the established o[...]