Category Archives: Logistics

Quote of the day: the whole process of business

Posted on January 7, 2013 by | Leave a comment

Ok, this is a via-via-via reference, found through the logistics quotes discussion on the Operations & Supply Chain Academic Group on LinkedIn. But the quote is nice nonetheless:

“Physical distribution is simply another way of saying “the whole process of business”.” Peter Drucker.

The entire discussion can be found here, and a white paper collecting all sorts of similar SCM / logistics quote can be downloaded here. Add your quotes so that they can be added to the white paper!

Gyöngyi

PS. addition on Jan 9, just found another blog full of quotes, here they are.

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Posted in Logistics, Socks and sandals, Supply Chain Management

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Quote of the day: “A good paper is a good paper…”

Posted on November 12, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Alan McKinnon’s article on “starry eyed” journal ratings and rankings is on IJPDLM’s EarlyCite and has been circulating around in logistics mailing lists – creating considerable discussion in the otherwise rather quiet Logprofs list, for example. Here’s my favourite quote from the article:

“a good paper is a good paper
regardless of the journal in which it is published”

As with everything else in the article, I couldn’t agree more.

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Academic journals, Journal ranking, Logistics, Supply Chain Management

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Impressions from the Olympus conference

Posted on October 8, 2012 by | Leave a comment

This is a Greek + diaspora conference mostly but with the with to expand. Topics were certainly universal, ranging from transport infrastructure to city logistics, reverse logistics, to greening the agri-food supply chain. All coming with a reference to the current economic crisis, though – including articles that investigate the impact of the economic crisis on various aspects of the supply chain. Way beyond Greece, this is sthg we may all want to learn about.

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Conferences, Logistics, Operations management, Socks and sandals, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability

Quote of the day: Development = not needing a car

Posted on September 20, 2012 by | 1 Comment

“A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation.”

Spotted at TEDxYouth@Seattle’s FB site.

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Carbon management, Logistics, Popular science, Service management, Socks and sandals, Transport geography

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2011 impact factors in SCM

Posted on July 5, 2012 by | 2 Comments

Just when I wrote that we are in suspense with the rankings the new ISI impact factors came out. Here’s the verdict for a variety of journals – again, this is a selected few related to logistics, operations management, supply chain management, transportation, you name it – the stuff we write about on this blog. In alphabetical order, with the 5-year in brackets:

Computers and Operations Research: 1.720 (1.984)
Decision Science: 1.359 (3.146)
European Journal of Operations Research: 1.815 (2.277)
Interfaces: 0.843 (1.048)
International Journal of Logistics Management: 0.841
International Journal of Logistics: Research and Applications: 0.357
International Journal of Operations and Production Management: 1.127 (1.993)
International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management: 1.038
International Journal of Production Economics: 1.720 (2.384)
International Journal of Production Research: 1.115 (1.367)
Journal of Business Logistics: 2.352
Journal of Operations Management: 4.382 (6.012)
Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management: 1.061
Journal of Supply Chain Management: 2.650
Journal of Transport Geography: 2.538 (2.973)
Management Science: 1.733 (3.304)
Omega: 3.338 (3.622)
Operations Research Letters: 0.537 (0.821)
Production and Operations Management: 1.301 (2.259)
Supply Chain Management: An International Journal: 1.535 (2.404)
Transport Policy: 1.719
Transportation Research Part A: 2.354 (2.705)
Transportation Research Part B: 2.856 (3.393)
Transportation Research Part C: 1.957 (2.284)
Transportation Research Part D: 1.659 (1.777)
Transportation Research Part E: 1.648 (2.126)
Transportation Research Part F: 1.989
Transportation Research Record: 0.471 (0.608)
Transportation Science: 1.507 (2.107)
Transportation: 1.023 (2.074)

Overall, some ups and downs, and some new journals (e.g. IJLM) in the ranking.

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Academic journals, Journal ranking, Logistics, Operations management, Purchasing, Supply Chain Management

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Rankings in suspense

Posted on June 26, 2012 by | 1 Comment

We are all a bit in suspense – the Web of Science already shows you how many times a journal was cited in IJLM but it doesn’t yet show IJLM’s own rating. Hm.

In the meantime national rankings are moving forward. Handelsblatt is about to publish its 2012 ranking – if this list stands till Sep this would come with significant improvements for ops mgmt, SCM and logistics journals, so this is good news for our German colleagues. “Julkaisufoorumi” (the Finnish Publication Forum Project) is also just about to revise its ranking, they just heard all universities comments. Stay tuned for the verdicts…

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Academic journals, Journal ranking, Logistics, Operations management, Supply Chain Management

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Just finished: NOFOMA 2012

Posted on June 13, 2012 by | Leave a comment

NOFOMA 2012 went out with a bang. Suitably, the Nordic logistics conference was held on a vessel (part of the hotel was a cruise ship). The conference itself was quite a journey in time, it took us back to history – great playing cards and medieval banquet – as well as came back to the future, to trade and transport development to future Nokia phones.

And it was quite a package: “die hard” doctoral students followed a course before and another after the conference. But it was worth it :-) Check out the pics on the NOFOMA webpage!

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Conferences, Logistics, Nofoma, PhD, Supply Chain Management, Transport geography

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Now: Theories and Research in Logistics and SCM

Posted on June 3, 2012 by | 4 Comments

No, this is not to add to the theories debate, though the doctoral course we are running right now in Turku may do that. There is an astonishing variety of topics among the participants, anything from public procurement to lean manufacturing to assessing logistics costs on the national level to environmental issues in food supply chains… And yet they all face the same challenges:

- What is theory?
- Which one to select for my thesis?
- How to contribute to it?

With the help of Árni Halldórsson (from this blog) and Craig Carter, the course may shed light on some of these questions – though I ask myself if wondering about them isn’t a perpetual quest in (SCM) research.

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Education & Management Development, Logistics, Operations management, PhD, Purchasing, Research & Methodology, Scientific explanation, Supply Chain Management, Theory

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Quote of the day: same in filmmaking

Posted on May 25, 2012 by | 1 Comment

“In the military, they like to note that 60 percent of strategy is logistics.  Same with filmmaking, I suppose.”

- David Simon (upon finishing season 3 of Treme)

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Posted in Logistics, Socks and sandals

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LPI 2012 report out

Posted on May 16, 2012 by | Leave a comment

The World Bank has just released the new Logistics Performance Index 2012 along with its report, showing how the LPI also impacts on supply chains. After all, “supply chains are only as strong as their weakest links” (quoted from the report in fact).

The gap between high and low performers in the LPI remains high. The bottom quintile is mostly made up of landlocked countries (or small island states), post-conflict zones and countries seriously impacted by natural disasters… The LPI also makes a link between income and LPI score, yet there are numerous under- and over-performers, i.e. income alone doesn’t make the difference. So what does? The way forward is outlined to consist of investments in trade-related infrastructure (road quality, rail infrastructure), improving logistics services in developing countries, co-ordinating border management, regional facilitation and integration, national data for reforms, and for a differentiator in the final (strongest) quintile, supply chain sustainability and development. I bet the next doctoral course on Trade and Transport Facilitation will shed some more light on these issues, after all, many of those who contributed to the report will also be the faculty in the course.

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Logistics, PhD, Popular science, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability