Monthly Archives: September 2007

ELA educators day

Posted on September 29, 2007 by | Leave a comment

This year’s EUROLOG and educators’ day are organised in Berlin, together with the German BVL. Quite in line with the trend in SCM research, the topic of the educators’ day is “risk management in logistics networks”. However, it’s striking that while there are a bunch of great speakers, there is no CFP for either of the conferences…

But other things to look forward to are the European supply chain excellence awards (which last year was won by the IFRC – no better place to award also “risk management”), and the annual doctoral symposium.

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Conferences, Education & Management Development, Supply Chain Management

Happy planet index

Posted on September 25, 2007 by | Leave a comment

Food for thought -happiness is apparently related to a country’s (and a person’s) carbon footprint. Negatively. (Here’s the study.) Time to start reconsidering one’s lifestyle…

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Carbon management, Sustainability

Careers of PhD students — business schools

Posted on September 20, 2007 by | Leave a comment

Here is a very interesting reading for PhD students (and even more importantly, their supervisors) that are planning a career in business schools: The Academic Life: Realistic Changes Needed for Business School Students and Faculty (Mitchell, 2007).

The starting point is that MBA programs have been widely discussed (and critisised!) by scholars and practitioners during the last few years, and a number of universities have re-designed these programs. PhD programs, however, have not got the same attention although it may be an urgent matter. The paper suggests that business school must improve in preparing their PhD students for the future, cf. this piece from the abstract of the paper:

Our PhD students need to know how to teach MBAs and executives, how to be successful researchers and entrepreneurs (e.g., to get grants), and how to be ethical models for our student citizens.

Full reference:
Mitchell, Terrence A. (2007): The Academic Life: Realistic Changes Needed for Business School Students and Faculty, The Academy of Management Learning and Education (AMLE), Vol. 6, No. 7, pp. 236-251.

Árni

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Posted in Education & Management Development

Executive Master of Science (MSc) in Global Supply Chain Management

Posted on September 19, 2007 by | Leave a comment

More information here:
Executive Master of Science (MSc) in Global Supply Chain Management. An interesting part-time, modular alternative to an MBA degree, including courses on purchasing, logistics, operations, finance, people management, buyer-supplier relationships, sustainability and international sourcing.

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Posted in Education & Management Development, management, Supply Chain Management

The risk of supply chain management

Posted on September 19, 2007 by | Leave a comment

There is no consulting group that wouldn’t have discovered the importance of “supply chain risk management” – yet even when it comes to academic consulting, “solutions” stop short at “what if” exercises and scenario planning, the trend of “back to just-in-case” and “slack” (or the call for more innovative inventory management), and the “threat” of doing business in particular geographical regions (not just related to toys). Against this background, the topics at the upcoming (practitioner-oriented) Supply Chain Risk Management 2007 symposium in Berlin are quite innovative – risk management while being lean, the UN’s challenges in a hostile environment… relating SCRM to supply chain collaboration (as does Richard Wilding‘s video on YourTechTV). At the same time, one of the funniest things I came across was the acknowledgment of potential demand fluctuations under the heading of SCRM. Does anything and everything qualify for the label of SCRM nowadays?

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Supply Chain Management

Counting “sustainability” in conference proceedings

Posted on September 18, 2007 by | Leave a comment

With the first cup of coffee this morning, a quick word count of the proceedings of this year’s LRN conference and Nofoma conference result in following:

Nofoma 2007 proceedings (1172 pages):
Sustainable: 49
Sustainability: 26

LRN 2007 proceedings (765 pages):
Sustainable: 188
Sustainability: 100

Both conferences represent logistics and supply chain management. The immediate difference lies in the Nordic dominance of the Nofoma, and the fact that a great number of participants at the LRN conference work in UK. There is some but not large overlap of participants between these two conferences.

Is the sense of urgency greater in UK than the Nordic countries? Who is talking the walk, and who is walking the talk?

Árni

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Posted in Carbon management, environment, Sustainability

The idea of “supply chain vs. supply chains”.

Posted on September 18, 2007 by | 3 Comments

It is becoming somewhat a common notion in the literature of SCM that the domain of competition has now moved from the company level; it is about supply chains vs. supply chains.

I am still not convinced.

1. Will this apply in all circumstances? What if two companies competing on the same marked share suppliers for critical (or dare I say strategic) components?

2. Where has the literature on strategic management, in particular the resource based view, adopted a supply chain perspective?

Árni

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Posted in Supply Chain Management, Theory

Call for papers: “LOGISTICS AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT APPLICATIONS WITHIN A GLOBAL CONTEXT”

Posted on September 14, 2007 by | 1 Comment

Many of our readers have showed an interest in publishing in academic journals. Here is an opportunity to submit a paper to Journal of Business Logistics, cf. this call for papers (that both quantitative AND qualitative contributions are welcomed):

Logistics and supply chain management are worldwide concerns facing organizations of all types. Irrespective of their location, organizations must attempt to optimize their logistics and supply chain networks. Likely, there are examples of innovative theory and applications of logistics and supply chain management that can be found across the globe. The sharing of these innovations will provide benefits to academicians and practitioners alike.

In recognition of the continuing importance of global logistics and supply chain management (SCM), the Journal of Business Logistics will be publishing a special issue on this topic. We are inviting authors to submit papers which address this theme. Theoretical and empirical (quantitative or qualitative) papers are welcomed. Manuscripts may examine one or more of the following topics:

* The application of logistics and SCM in various countries and regions of the world —case studies
* Unique features of logistics and SCM in various countries and regions of the world
* Supply chain disruption, security and global sourcing issues
* Managing the global supply chain
* Technology applications, including simulation and modeling, in global logistics and SCM contexts

Electronic submissions are strongly encouraged. If submitting hard copy of your paper, send five (5) copies to the Editor at the following address:

Dr. James R. Stock
Department of Marketing
University of South Florida
4202 East Fowler Avenue, BSN3403
Tampa, FL 33620-5500
Telephone: 813-974-6173 – Fax: 813-974-6175
E-mail: jstock@coba.usf.edu

Submission deadline: 15 March 2008

To get a quick, cronological overview, use the Call for papers button under Categories to the right on this page.

Árni

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Posted in Call for papers

Volatile business environment or incomplete ‘business models’?

Posted on September 14, 2007 by | Leave a comment

In many textbooks and almost every major (and minor) student assignment, I read about the ever fierce competition in many industries, fueled by globalisation and IT, and of course, this does put logistics & supply chain management into the centre of the Universe.

I had one of these crazy moments of thougth at the LRN 2007 conference last week during one of the sessions. During the last 20 or 30 years, many business models in logistics call for integration and substantial reduction of redundancies (cut down inventories, etc). Well, so far so good.

Recent vocabualry in the SCM literature includes resiliance, risk, robustness, sustainability, product recalls, reverse logistics.

Is this due to the fact that the business environment is changing fast? Or can it be the case, that many ‘business models’ do not allow realistic (e.g. in terms of time and cost) reaction to changes? Further, has this new vocabulary developed as a consequence of the incompletness of the ‘old business models’, that have left businesses with a vulnerable design of their supply chain?`

In other word, and as stated in a previous blog: Is supply chain management the solution to a particular problem, or maybe the problem itself?

Árni

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Posted in Reverse Logistics, Supply Chain Management, Theory

Skills for logistics

Posted on September 14, 2007 by | Leave a comment

Quite a few conference papers have lately focused on the topic of the skills needed for logistics. A UK project is even called “skills for logistics“, arranging annual conferences, while courses in Singapore also focus on this issue. But having a closer look at their programmes, we are back to the question of the image of this field. No matter that articles have criticised the view of logisticians being better storekeepers and truck drivers and assembled sets of skills needed in this field for a long time (cf. Gammelgaard & Larson, 2001), these projects still suffer from a transportation-only image… If we academics don’t shake up this field, who will?

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Supply Chain Management