Interorganisational - Supply Chain Management

Entries from November 2007

Back to basics

November 29, 2007 · No Comments

Today I caught myself in a teacher’s paradox: when asked about student learning, I instantly reacted from an external (teacher’s) perspective. Yet the question is so basic: what worked best for YOU? How did YOU learn most effectively? … But why do we educators so often think of students as different from ourselves? Anyway, here are some  insights of the pedagogical session I attended:

- Learning is more effective when applied (not just in cases but e.g. in own research projects) and/or related to known situations and own experiences
-  What I can teach I learn => learning is most effective when trying to explain sthg complex to others (e.g. peers/other students)
- When confronted with sthg new, it helps to turn the argument around (or look at the limitations of a concept etc.)
- An element of surprise / humour makes learning instances more memorable…

Haven’t we all heard and experienced all of this many times over? Yet when it comes to teaching, it is so easy to focus on the “important content” more than the basics…

What was YOUR best (most effective) learning experience?

Gyöngyi

Categories: Education & Management Development · Socks and sandals

Will Facebook and similar networks become a platform for teachers and students?

November 26, 2007 · 1 Comment

Universities/Business schools use various electronic platforms to communicate with students (programme information, student services, syllabus, handouts, assignments…), of which MySchool I find easiest to work with compared to Blackboard and Sitescape.

Provided that students (and faculty) use various social electronic networks, it would ease the work of both groups to have an interface between these platforms; upload teaching material and other information that can be accessible to individual students through their Facebook?

Arni

Categories: Socks and sandals

The three amigos revisited

November 23, 2007 · 1 Comment

Could you imagine CILT and CIPS merging in the UK? Or ISM and CSCMP? That’s exactly what was happening recently in Finland, the purchasing people teaming up with the logisticians under the same umbrella organisation. A nice new step against functional silos, isn’t it?

Gyöngyi

Categories: Socks and sandals · Supply Chain Management

NOFOMA 2008 - Jun 4-6 in Helsinki

November 22, 2007 · No Comments

The abstract deadline for NOFOMA 2008 is approaching soon - note Jan 15 in your calendars! Uniquely, the conference is co-organised by four different universities, actually, ALL of those that have logistics education in the Helsinki region (and yes, I say Helsinki region, because oddly enough, the Helsinki University of Technology is actually located in Espoo, not in Helsinki). The big four are Hanken, the Helsinki School of Economics, Helsinki University of Technology, and the National Defence University. Just in time that they’ve started to co-operate, after all this is nothing smaller than the 20th anniversary conference! So you can be sure of a great celebration in Helsinki during Jun 4-6.

While the website is migrating (we are still waiting for access rights), here are the crucial dates to note. And a link to the call for papers. UPDATE: you’ll find the CFP on the Nofoma 2008 page of this blog!

First to the dates:
- Deadline for structured abstracts (for Nofoma and Educators Day): Jan 15, 2008
- Full paper deadline (for Nofoma and Educators Day): Mar 28, 2008
- Revisions, WIP papers, poster sessions, and papers for the NORDLOG doctoral workshop: May 2, 2008
- Early bird registration: May 2, 2008
- NORDLOG Doctoral Workshop: Jun 4, 2008 (at the Helsinki University of Technology)
- NOFOMA Educators Day: Jun 4, 2008 (at the Helsinki School of Economics)
- NOFOMA main conference: Jun 5-6, 2008 (at HANKEN)

As you’ll note from the CFP, there are a couple of new features coming up with the conference.
- First of all, the educators day has a call for papers! I.e. please submit your teaching-relevant publications to the conference! They’ll be reviewed, and the ones that make it as a full paper will be included in the conference proceedings.
- Secondly, there is a poster session with a special deadline.
- And… lots of surprise elements to come. But they wouldn’t be surprises if I were to post them here, would they? ;-)

So, note the dates and have a look at the CFP. You’ll find all traditional logistics/SCM themes on it (from theoretical developments, modelling and simulation tracks, to TPL-related issues, ICT in logistics etc.). And a couple of new ones: humanitarian logistics, security & safety in traffic and transport (greetings to the EU’s 7FP), and healthcare supply chains.

Most importantly, this is a conference with a full paper review. And, best papers will be selected for the International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management.

Welcome to Helsinki in June!

Gyöngyi

Categories: Academic publications · Call for papers · Conferences · Humanitarian supply chains · PhD · Research & Methodology · Supply Chain Management · Theory

Management: The M in SCM?

November 21, 2007 · No Comments

You are not alone if you wonder what the management part of supply chain management is about.

The Future of Management by Gary Hamel is not about SCM, but this book does certainly offer an interesting view of management. This is one of the observations made at the beginning of the book:

“Yet unlike the laws of physics, the laws of management are neither foreordained nor eternal—and a good thing, too, for the equipment of management is now groaning under the strain of a load it was never meant to carry.Whiplash change, fleetinga dvantages, technological disruptions, seditious competitors, fractured markets, omnipotent customers, rebellious shareholders—these 21stcentury challenges are testing the design limits of organizations around the world, and are exposing the limitations of a management model that has failed to keep pace with the times.”

Supply chain management is often presented in terms of high degree of inter-firm integration that is grounded in efficient coordination of economic activities. But does this integration allow organisations to respond to the challenges Gary Hamel is referring to above?

Árni

Categories: Supply Chain Management

Another blogger

November 20, 2007 · No Comments

Yay! Paul Larson FINALLY joined the blog. You’ll hear more from him soon.

Gyöngyi

Categories: Socks and sandals

Now: CCHLI symposium

November 20, 2007 · 1 Comment

Greetings from the CCHLI symposium on (obviously) humanitarian logistics. Heaps of interesting papers were presented - if anyone wants the proceedings, they can be obtained from Peter Tatham directly.

Paul and Gyöngyi

Categories: Academic publications · Conferences · Humanitarian supply chains

The box

November 15, 2007 · No Comments

What comes to your mind if you were to think of a book that is fascinating to the extent that you can’t put it down and read it in one go? A book that has an interesting storyline? One that is spiced up with references you could actually use in your research? And examples for your teaching? That reads like a novel?

Any suggestions? No? Now what about this, a book about containers. Something the author himself calls “[a] soulless aluminum or steel box held together with welds and rivets, with a wooden floor and two enormous doors at one end: the standard container has all the romance of a tin can“. This is not a misprint, rather, me being surprised how you can write such a fascinating piece on “the box” (which is actually the title of the book). Popular science meeting SCM. And I say SCM because of the links Marc Levinson makes between containerisation and globalisation, enabling first international trade, then global supply chains - where transportation costs can almost be neglected. It links a number of disciplines, from transportation to macro-economics, transport geography to economic geography, political economics and industrial relations - just and only via one innovation and how it changed the world. Obviously, “[t]he value of this utilitarian object lies not in what it is, but in how it is used.”

There are lots of reviews of the book to be found, including interviews with the author, essays putting it into perspective - but I can only recommend to read the book itself.

Gyöngyi

PS. Thanks to Marianne Jahre for recommending the book!

Categories: Book review · Popular science

Transportation emissions

November 13, 2007 · No Comments

Following the hype of carbon management, a new report on transportation emissions (originating from freight movements) also focuses on CO2 emissions in particular. Alan McKinnon already presented some of the findings at LRN, this is now the full report. What is particularly nice about it is a comparison of different methods to calculate transportation emissions. This and other related reports can now be found at the website of the UK Commission for Integrated Transport.

Gyöngyi

Categories: Carbon management

Impact factors revisited

November 13, 2007 · No Comments

The latest PhD comic made me think - what’s the legacy of (my) academic research going to be? If lucky, there will be some articles people read and cite; but already now, the readership of this blog surpasses all potential readership of any academic article; pretty comparable to Jorge Cham’s impact factor :-)

Gyöngyi

Categories: Academic publications · Journal ranking · Socks and sandals