Interorganisational - Supply Chain Management

Entries categorized as ‘Humanitarian supply chains’

New journal: Operations and Supply Chain Management - an International Journal

July 14, 2008 · 1 Comment

New SCM journals pop up all the time; the latest one taking an ops mgmt view again. Here’s the link to Operations and Supply Chain Management - an International Journal (OSCM). One could also dubb it the “open access SCM journal” as downloads (as for now) are for free, printed copies only obtainable for a fee. I particularly like Benita Beamon’s opening article on “Sustainability and the future of SCM” that does for a change not only look at green SCM, but broadens the scope to diverse societal implications of SCM. Quite in vein of Árni’s “SCM for societal impact“.

And we are still in search for a good name for our textbook on that topic… Any suggestions?

Gyöngyi

Categories: Academic journals · Humanitarian supply chains · Operations management · Supply Chain Management · Sustainability

Doctoral students in humanitarian logistics

June 27, 2008 · No Comments

This is for potential PhD students: Hanken is seeking doctoral students in humanitarian logistics to start in Sep 2008 within the Relief Supply Chain Management project. Applications are due on Aug 4, 2008.

Gyöngyi

Categories: Humanitarian supply chains · Logistics · PhD · Supply Chain Management · humanitarian

Defence logistics research

May 23, 2008 · No Comments

Logistics research takes many forms, but now a different type of conference invitation landed in my mailbox: one to a “military logistics symposium“. It’s in fact a research convention that’s organised by the Nordic Defence Logistic Research Network and takes place during Dec 4/5 in Stockholm. What makes it particularly interesting is that this research network is quite engaged in humanitarian logistics, and CIMIC research at the same time. Not to forget the traditional defence logistics topics that will come up as well.

Interested? Contact Per Skoglund [firstname.lastname@ihh.hj.se] or Michael Dorn [firstname.lastname@fhs.se] for more info. And don’t forget to send in an abstract by June 25, 2008!

Gyöngyi

Categories: Call for papers · Conferences · Humanitarian supply chains · Logistics · 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

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 weather

August 1, 2007 · No Comments

Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.

Or something like that. But recently, one of the most interesting news themes is the weather. Floods in China, Pakistan, the UK, heatwaves in Central Europe… UNEP reported how dire weather conditions in Darfur lead to famines, displacements, and conflicts; climate change being a direct cause to the crisis in Darfur. The National Geographic even offers a selection of maps looking at the effects of climate change. So what? What is there to do about it? For once, even the Economist featured an article on disaster relief, and I quote: “Disaster relief is basically a giant logistical operation“. Not that this was new (at least not to humanitarian logisticians), but now the news is spreading.

The ball has been passed on to research. And here it comes; GIS researchers have recently developed a model to predict floods. And I just love Stoffel and Meister’s (2004) assessment of avalaunches and the accessibility of their areas… While not a new idea per se, evaluating the (transportation) accessibility of areas can be assisted by GIS models, and vehicle routing can well use surface models. Only the focus is now shifting to disaster relief and its logistical response (see e.g. ESRI’s selection of GIS cases and best practices). While this may not yet challenge Kmitta’s (1999) criticism that the SCM involvement of GIS applications is still limited, it sets a precedence, and probably a new trend in research (see this CFP). Interestingly, when it comes to disaster relief, GIS enters the field of “mobile SCM“. Now this is a buzzword we haven’t heard much about lately, have we? It’s time to get back to dynamic and real-time routing and modelling, time to embrace m-business also in SCM. And if we also embrace carbon management, we might just be able to do something about the weather.

Gyöngyi

Categories: Carbon management · Humanitarian supply chains · Research & Methodology · Supply Chain Management

Humanitarian logistics research

June 22, 2007 · 1 Comment

Newsflash on humanitarian logistics research: the HUMLOG Group has finally launched a website. Events for practitioners as well as related to research at the group, upcoming conferences related to humanitarian logistics etc. will be announced there. Which doesn’t mean this blog would see less of this interesting topic :-)

Gyöngyi

PS. Happy midsummer weekend!

Categories: Humanitarian supply chains

Now: EurOMA 2007

June 18, 2007 · No Comments

EurOMA 2007 is now being held in Ankara (Turkey). The programme has a lot of interesting bits and pieces, you just need to click on each session and have a glance at the groovy titles of the papers! Logistics “orchestration” and supply chain “harmonisation” are music in my ears :-)

Also others sound very interesting, e.g. a Delphi study on sustainable supply chain management, putting CSR “from the periphery to the centre”, lots of cross-country comparisons, risk management issues (e.g. “crisis and revival at Nissan”), tracks on new product development in supply chains, service operations tracks (even a paper of “the servitisation of manufacturing”) etc.

And most nicely, after having two “humanitarian logistics” tracks at Nofoma 2007, EurOMA also closes with a tribute to the field; Luk van Wassenhove giving a speech on “supply chain management in the context of humanitarian disasters“.

Gyöngyi

PS. EurOMA stands for the “European Operations Management Association“.

Categories: Conferences · Humanitarian supply chains · Supply Chain Management

Humanitarian logistics summer school

May 30, 2007 · No Comments

The Università della Svizzera italiana is arranging its second summer school on humanitarian logistics in August 2007 (Aug 27-29) in wonderful Lugano. Applications can be sent in during June.

After that, in Sep 2007, the Centre of Logistics and Supply Chain Management (CeLS) at JIBS is about to arrange a HUMLOG workshop on the topic of “co-ordination in humanitarian logistics”. And later (Nov 2007) there is a symposium on humanitarian logistics arranged by Cranfield University and Cardiff University. NB! Abstracts for the CCHLI symposium are already due on June 18th, 2007!

Nice to see that the topic is catching interest!

Gyöngyi

Categories: Humanitarian supply chains

Humanitarian logistics

April 27, 2007 · 2 Comments

Humanitarian logistics and humanitarian supply chains are gaining academic interest. Several academic and semi-academic groups have been established in recent years, e.g. the HELP forum, HUMLOG, CCHLI, the Fritz Institute, INSEAD’s and MIT’s teams etc. Teaching has also caught up, Washington University giving dedicated courses, INSEAD introducing an executive masters; and others following suit. And while it was still really difficult to find anything academic on the topic in the end of 2005 (for a review made exactly then see Kovács and Spens, 2007); things started to change in 2006. Quite a got lot published in 2006, and even best paper awards went to papers in humanitarian logistics, e.g. the Outstanding Paper award from the Emerald Literati Network went to Oloruntoba and Gray’s (2006) article in Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, and both LRN 2006 and NOFOMA 2006 gave their best paper awards to papers in humanitarian logistics.

2007 looks even more promising. There are new humanitarian logistics tracks at international conferences (e.g. a discussion forum at INFORMS, and right now ongoing a track at POMS), even a new dedicated conference, the CCHLI symposium, best papers of which are going to be selected for a special issue of Management Research News, furthermore, two CFPs focusing on humanitarian logistics are also out in different journals:
- “Managing Supply Chain Risks in Disasters” for the International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management (IJRAM), and
- “Co-ordination of Service Providers in Humanitarian Aid“; for the International Journal of Services Technology and Management (IJSTM)

It will be great to follow the development of this discipline.

Gyöngyi

Categories: Conferences · Education & Management Development · Humanitarian supply chains · Research & Methodology · Supply Chain Management