Knowledge

Keyword: Supply chain management

paper

Modelling Ripple Effect Propagation and Global Supply Chain Workforce Productivity Impacts in Pandemic Disruptions

Xavier Brusset, Morteza Davari, Aseem Kinra, Davide La Torre

An increasing number of disruptions in ports, plants and warehouses have generated ripple effects over supply networks impacting economic activity. We demonstrate how the spread of the pandemic geographically expands the ripple effect by reducing the workers' participation in production, so undermining the ability of firms and, as a result, the entire cross-border sup- ply chain network to satisfy customers' demands. Our model of the spatio-temporal dynamics of the propagation of Covid-19 infection for supply networks contributes toward ripple effect visualisation and quantification by combining the flow of goods and materials through a typical global supply chain with an epidemiological model. The model enables prospective analyses to be performed in what-if scenarios to simulate the impact on the workforce in each node. The outcome should be helpful tools for managers and scholars. Results from this research will help mitigate the impact and spread of a pandemic in a particular region and the ability of a supply network to overcome the ripple effect. A stylised case study of a cross-border supply chain illustrates the ripple effect by showing how waves with crests at varying dates impact the ability to serve demand showing how a supply chain manager can obtain a forward-looking picture.

International Journal of Production Research / 2023
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book

Greening global value chains

Katerina Peterkova Mitkidis

Most regulatory tools for low-carbon transition are jurisdiction-specific, respecting the principle of national sovereignty. Although possibly locally successful, they typically capture only scope 1 and scope 2 emissions. Value chains-related (scope 3) emissions remain largely unregulated. This is problematic, as global value chains are commonly organized across multiple jurisdictions with different climate policy ambitions. Products are often produced at different location than where they are consumed, and production-related emissions are transferred with the products. These emissions embedded in imported products amount to large volumes (e.g. in the EU estimated to about 30% of member state’s national emissions). This chapter gathers the scientific evidence on upstream scope 3 emissions and discusses the available regulatory toolbox for reducing those. Both private and public regulatory tools are represented as well as soft and hard regulatory tools, and modifications between those categories. The interactions between the various types of regulation are discussed with the aim to identify possible synergies and conflicts. The chapter takes the EU as its starting point and draws in examples from other jurisdictions where relevant.

Handbook of Energy Law in the Low-Carbon Transition / 2023
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paper

Next Generation Supply Chain Management: The Impact of Cloud Computing

Britta Gammelgaard, Katarzyna Nowicka*

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of cloud computing (CC) on supply chain management (SCM).

Design/methodology/approach
The paper is conceptual and based on a literature review and conceptual analysis.

Findings
Today, digital technology is the primary enabler of supply chain (SC) competitiveness. CC capabilities support competitive SC challenges through structural flexibility and responsiveness. An Internet platform based on CC and a digital ecosystem can serve as “information cross-docking” between SC stakeholders. In this way, the SC model is transformed from a traditional, linear model to a platform model with the simultaneous cooperation of all partners. Platform-based SCs will be a milestone in the evolution of SCM – here conceptualised as Supply Chain 3.0.

Research limitations/implications
Currently, SCs managed holistically in cyberspace are rare in practice, and therefore empirical evidence on how digital technologies impact SC competitiveness is required in future research.

Practical implications
This research generates insights that can help managers understand and develop the next generation of SCM with the use of CC, a modern and commonly available Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) tool.

Originality/value
The paper presents a conceptual basis of how CC enables structural flexibility of SCs through easy, real-time resource and capacity reconfiguration. CC not only reduces cost and increases flexibility but also offers an effective solution for disruptive new business models with the potential to revolutionise current SCM thinking.

Journal of Enterprise Information Management / 2023
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paper

Artificial intelligence for Supply Chain Management: Disruptive Innovation or Innovative Disruption?

Christian Hendriksen

This article examines the theoretical and practical implications of artificial intelligence (AI) integration in supply chain management (SCM). AI has developed dramatically in recent years, embodied by the newest generation of large language models (LLM) that exhibit human-like capabilities in various domains. However, SCM as a discipline seems unprepared for this potential revolution, as existing perspectives do not capture the potential for disruption offered by AI tools. Moreover, AI integration in SCM is not only a technical but also a social process, influenced by human sensemaking and interpretation of AI systems. This article offers a novel theoretical lens called the AI Integration (AII) framework, which considers two key dimensions: the level of AI integration across the supply chain and the role of AI in decision-making. It also incorporates human meaning-making as an overlaying factor that shapes AI integration and disruption dynamics. The article demonstrates that different ways of integrating AI will lead to different kinds of disruptions, both in theory and practice. It also discusses the implications of AI integration for SCM theorizing and practice, highlighting the need for cross-disciplinary collaboration and sociotechnical perspectives.

Journal of Supply Chain Management / 2023
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paper

Systems Approaches Are Still Providing New Avenues for Research as the Foundation of Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Britta Gammelgaard

As a young researcher—admittedly a long time ago—I was struggling with capturing the connections of the many published articles on logistics management. Apparently, many articles dealt with the same topics, yet they were not the same. There seemed to be different viewpoints on what was a scientific contribution and what kinds of methods were allowed. Why did everyone not agree with these questions? Without an understanding of the different research traditions, it was difficult to compare results, validate them and create a meaningful discussion of the various contributions.

Within the Nordic research community, which consists of economists, engineers and management researchers, there were several answers to these questions. In this community, I learnt about systems from engineers. Then, it became clear that there are various philosophies of science that do not have the same understanding of what a theory is and what appropriate methods are. I was searching the philosophy of science literature for a systems perspective and the research implications of such a perspective. To my surprise, I did not find it here, but luckily, I came across a book about methodologies in business research where the systems approach was one of three approaches. I also learnt that, depending on the methodology, the term theory has a different meaning depending on the philosophy of science it originates from. That made a lot of sense to me. Understanding this better, I published my research on this topic in “Schools in Logistics Research” in 2004 (Gammelgaard, 2004). This rather old article is still my daily research guide.

The International Journal of Logistics Management / 2023
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paper

Building a Decarbonized Supply Chain from the Ground Up: Early Evidence from the E-Methanol Shipping Fuel Supply Chain

Christian Hendriksen, Tara Dastmalchian

In this study, we investigate the barriers and enablers companies face when they seek to establish a fully decarbonized supply chain from the ground up. While recent research on sustainable supply chain management has advanced our understanding of how existing supply chains can become more sustainable, there is less research on fully decarbonized supply chains that are designed carbon neutral to produce carbon neutral products. This research aims to expand that frontier by investigating the case of the emerging supply chain delivering fossil-neutral e- methanol to the shipping industry.

EUROMA, European Operations Management Association / Conference / 2023
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paper

Maritime Spare Parts Management: Current State-of-the-Art

Julia Pahl

Having the right spare part at the right time to the right place for ship maintenance to the minimal possible costs is an exigent management problem that maritime shipping companies face. This is especially challenging in bulk shipping where routes are not fixed, but subsequent port calls depend on spot market dynamics. Thus, spare parts allocation ahead in time is limited, but possible if failures rates of ship components and their timing can be foreseen, so that spare parts can be allocated to hedge against the risk of long waiting times and thus ship downtimes. Thus, monitoring the condition of components key to the ships performance is essential to the task. This can enable companies to significantly reduce operational costs of their fleet leading to a competitive advantage in a highly volatile market regarding demand and demand-driven freight rates.
However, shipping companies seem far away from applying such methods due to various challenges ranging from data gathering and cultivating an understanding of data quality needs, adaptation to move from preventive towards predictive and condition-based monitoring, and the introduction and application of decision support tools for sourcing, spare parts allocation, and inventory management.

In this paper, we investigate the current state of the art of maintenance and related spare parts logistics management for maritime shipping and discuss the application of methods to the bulk carriage market. We add practical knowledge from case companies and discuss how challenges can be overcome in providing guidelines for companies.

55th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2022 - Virtual, Online, USA / 2022
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Planning a maritime supply chain for liquefied natural gas under uncertainty

Ulrik Eriksen Johan Kristiansen Kjetil Fagerholt Pantuso, Giovanni

This paper studies the design of a mid-scale maritime supply chain for distribution of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from overseas sourcing locations, via a storage located at the coast, before transporting the LNG on land to industrial customers. The case company has signed contracts with a number of initial customers and expect that there will be more customers and increased demand in the years to come. However, it is currently uncertain whether and when new contracts will be signed. To capture this uncertainty with regard to which and how many future customers there will be, which directly affects the demand, we propose a multi-stage stochastic programming model, which maximizes the expected profits of the supply chain. The model aims at aiding decisions concerning the import of LNG, investments in floating storage units and customer distribution systems, and it has been applied on a real case study for distributing LNG to customers in a Brazilian state. It is shown that explicitly considering uncertainty in the modeling of this problem is very important, with a Value of Stochastic Solution of 13.2%, and that there are significant economies of scale in this supply chain. Most importantly, the multi-stage stochastic programming model and the analysis presented in this paper provided valuable decision support and managerial insights for the case company in its process of setting up the LNG supply chain.

Maritime Transport Research / 2022
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Collaborating for Green: Towards an Ecosystem Configuration of the Maritime Industry

Rosa Maria Klöser, Leonardo Santiago

Reduction of carbon emissions is a societal challenge that demands concerted efforts. The maritime industry is no exception. This paper takes an ecosystem perspective and considers the question of how to enact the green transition of the maritime industry and explore the barriers and enablers of that goal. To this end, we conduct an exploratory case-study to investigate the maritime value chain by focusing on 9 major stakeholders and conducting more than 20 interviews. Our study reveals four continuous enablers and two essential enablers to establishing a functional green maritime ecosystem.

The 29th EurOMA International Annual Conference 2022: Brilliance in Resilience: Operations and Supply Chain Management’s Role in Achieving a Sustainable Future - Berlin, Germany / 2022
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paper

The Potential and Limits of Environmental Disclosure Regulation: A Global Value Chain Perspective Applied to Tanker Shipping

Poulsen, René Taudal; Ponte, Stefano; Van Leeuwen, Judith; Rehmatulla, Nishatabbas

Exploring how transnational environmental governance and the operation of global value chains (GVCs) intersect is key in explaining the circumstances under which mandatory disclosure can improve the environmental footprint of business operations. We investigate how the governance dynamics of the tanker shipping value chain (a major emitter of greenhouse gases) limits the effectiveness of the European Union (EU) monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) regulation, which mandates the disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions for ships calling at EU ports. Although MRV seeks to help shipowners and ship managers save fuel and reduce emissions, it does not address the complexity of power relations along the tanker shipping value chain and currently cannot disentangle how different actors influence the design, operational, commercial, and ocean/weather factors that together determine fuel consumption. In particular, the EU MRV neglects to reflect on how oil majors exert their power and impose their commercial priorities on other actors, and thus co-determine fuel use levels. We conclude that, in its current form, the EU MRV is unlikely to lead to significant environmental upgrading in tanker shipping. More generally, we argue that regulators seeking to facilitate environmental upgrading need to expand their focus beyond the unwanted behaviors of producers of goods and providers of services to also address the incentive structures and demands placed on them by global buyers.

Global Environmental Politics, Volume 21 / 2021
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