The theme of the year is “innovation in logistics”, not entirely surprising at a university where logistics is under the department of entrepreneurship (JIBS’ EMM department). The probably most interesting paper under the theme was on logistics innovation at Mackay memorial hospital. But apart from this, the conference theme could (especially after last year’s “beyond business logistics”) very well be “back to basics”. With some notable exceptions (humanitarian logistics, CSR/sustainability issues) the tracks are most classic: purchasing, logistics strategy, logistics and IT, transport and distribution, logistics modelling and simulation… Is logistics research going back to basics?
Gyöngyi
Categories: Conferences · Nofoma · Socks and sandals
Can supply chain management work well in practice without drawing on ‘theories of supply chain management’?
Árni
Categories: Scientific explanation · Socks and sandals · Supply Chain Management
I am a bit troubled with the representation of “lean” and “just-in-time” in various core textbooks. What students read far too often is that all inventories are waste and must be eliminated.
“First you identify the waste, then you elimiate it”.
Without recognising that inventories do have a role to play, and that role is easy to address e.g. through various trade-offs; inventory costs vs. other forms of logistics costs. And there is (ideally) also a relationship with customer service to consider.
The grumpy point I want to make is that the misinterpretation is not only the fault of the students; our textbooks can be (and are) vague on this point, and as teachers we must also pin this down more carefully.
Árni
Categories: Socks and sandals · Supply Chain Management
Remember the times when academics met at conferences to discuss the newest results of their research, find collaboration partners, or even just to mingle? It seems these times are over. The latest trend at universities (blame it on the credit crunch, if you like) is to not support conference attendance any more. There is just one catch: presenting a paper at a conference is a first step towards a journal publication, especially if you get good feedback at the conference. And another: you won’t really know much about potential collaboration partners without ever meeting them. It’s not as if “upcoming” projects would ever be found on a website or in journal publications…
There is another problem with the “first step towards a publication” notion: some conference explicitly see their proceedings as publications and do not allow you to send them further to a journal (not even if you really worked on them later).
Will this be the end to academics going to conferences?
Gyöngyi
Categories: Conferences · Socks and sandals
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Christmas carrolls are full of wishes for snow – alas, anyone living in the UK now doesn’t think of a white Christmas. (Nor did anyone in China a year ago.) Why is it that snow comes such a surprise that all(!) transportation modes come to a halt? It’s the same thing at Milan airport, the first snowfall of the year leads to a complete shutdown, and to infinite disruptions in any supply chain that involves companies from Milan. Hope it doesn’t affect fashion week 
What I do not understand is the “surprise” effect of snow; it snows there every year at least once! Or have we got used too much to the effects of global warming that we have forgotten about snow?
What is more, what ever happened to dynamic vehicle routing models that could be used to avoid such disruptions? Or maybe we should ask Emmett Lodree for advice how to incorporate weather forecasts in supply chain modelling? (see his latest article in Computers and Operations Research)
Well, I certainly hope that the supply chains of “snow chains” don’t suffer from snow!
Gyöngyi
BTW, according to IBM, “SNOW” will make your supply chain greener 
Categories: Socks and sandals · Supply Chain Management · Sustainability
Here comes the first hurdle to an academic contribution (journal article, conference paper): the abstract. Varying in length and structure, it is the teaser one has to write to water the mouth of the reader. There are lots of good guides to abstract writing (see e.g. Emerald’s collection of “how to guides“); here is also a “fill in the blanks” version
Gyöngyi
Categories: Academic publications · Socks and sandals
