Category Archives: Socks and sandals

Facility location or location around a facility?

Posted on March 7, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Few companies are still as location-bound as mines. Earlier it was agriculture, mining and train tracks defining where people lived. Now train tracks are pretty much out of the equation, at least according to Kotavaara et al. (in press). Agriculture became more global but the recent trend places an emphasis on local food again. So what about mining? When asked about whether they should give up mining or move the entire city, two cities in Sweden decided for the latter: Kiruna (even rerouting railway connections currently) and a part of Malmberget. Back to local… Though it is certainly preferable to move a city than to expose it to (quite predictable) mining accidents.

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Disaster management, Socks and sandals, Supply Chain Management

Rejection anxiety

Posted on February 2, 2011 by | 4 Comments

Upon all the articles on “why I rejected your paper” and books on dissertation writing, finally there is an outlet that deals with rejection anxiety: the Journal of Universal Rejection. It certainly tops all rankings if you base them on acceptance rates :-) What a lovely practical joke on academics.

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Academic journals, Journal ranking, Socks and sandals

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas

Posted on December 21, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Or: “Leise rieselt der Schnee...” Christmas carols are full of the snow theme. So are many European airports at this point. To the extent that BBC even reported on how Helsinki airport can manage to keep open with 65 cm snow in December alone whilst others need to close. The lesson is just so familiar in humanitarian logistics: preparedness is key to respond to any disruption.

Gyöngyi

PS. Hope you are all prepared for the holidays and get to spend them with your families in spite of the snow chaos. Lessons from intermodal transportation might help in getting there :-) And if you want to hear the song, here’s the Robbie Williams version of dreaming of a white Christmas.

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Posted in Socks and sandals, Supply chain disruption

We love logistics

Posted on December 7, 2010 by | 1 Comment

Upon discovering that logistics can also be an artist (with fitting song themes such as “warehouse”), “we love logistics” also became a song title. Never mind the commercial, I just love the song :-)

Gyöngyi

PS. kudos to Fiona

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Posted in Logistics, Socks and sandals

Plagiarising – now a political problem?

Posted on November 12, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Ethics committees guard more and more types of research at universities and in different countries. Even student papers are routinely checked for plagiarism. There have been many infamous cases in which academic titles were stripped from people and several companies lost their licences to operate upon a scandal related to breaching some aspect of research ethics.

But what will happen to politicians plagiarising each others’ statutes? This is exactly what happened between two parties in Sweden. And the parties aren’t even close in ideology…

Gyöngyi

PS There is enough material in this for another John Le Carré novel after the Constant Gardener having looked into big pharma’s research ethics.

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Posted in Research & Methodology, Socks and sandals

Don’t drink and drive

Posted on November 8, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Accident Analysis and Prevention just published a special issue on alcohol, drugs, and driving. Not surprisingly, the essence of the message is “don’t drink and drive – NOR smoke and fly”. Not even as a witch, after all, Halloween is over.

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Academic publications, Socks and sandals

Ig Nobel prize in transportation

Posted on November 3, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Nobel prize laureates are scarce in our discipline – the only fame to the claim being Oliver Williamson’s article in the  Journal of Supply Chain Management. But at least the Ig Nobel prizes have discovered the discipline. And the award goes to… Tero et al. (2010) for “Rules for biologically inspired adaptive network design” aka the use of slime mould for rail network design. Congrats to Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Dan P. Bebber, Mark D. Fricker, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi & Toshiyuki Nakagaki!

Gyöngyi

PS. The Ig Nobel prize in physics isn’t too bad from a Finnish perspective: it demonstrates that socks worn over shoes stop you slipping on ice :-)

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Posted in Academic publications, Popular science, Scientific explanation, Socks and sandals

Man-made disruptions once again

Posted on October 12, 2010 by | 1 Comment

One doesn’t need a volcano, a strike is enough as demonstrated at the world cup in South Africa. French unions seemingly learned from this and are shutting down all modes of transportation today. Oil tankers are waiting to be unloaded thus petrol price is on the rise.

People should call their flight/train/bus/taxi/you name it company to get more information – but ironically, the helpdesk joined the strike. On the upside there are at least joint platforms to monitor such man-made disruptions around the globe.

Gyöngyi, perhaps on her way to France – or then not.

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Posted in Socks and sandals, Supply chain disruption

Research in social networks

Posted on October 7, 2010 by | 3 Comments

Some social networks have started out with a purpose to link professionals and track their links – now they are back to this purpose. Students have for a long time posted surveys on blogs but also facebook pages. Now researchers have come to embrace social networks to disseminate their output – which itself can take the form of classical articles (“fresh from the oven, who wants a copy”), books or, perhaps more suitable for this purpose, webinars. (Here is a book on “Humanitarian Logistics – a Career for Women“, spotted through the Linkedin WISE platform, and a webinar on “SMART service supply chains“.) Conferences have their own facebook sites (e.g. CSCMP) and even journals and groups of journals (e.g. the Elsevier transportation facebook page). More seriously, here is a link to a book on social network analysis methods, and ironically, a network for social network analysis. And why not, there are even social networks dedicated to research…

Gyöngyi

PS. The movie “the social network” should also be out by now.

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Posted in Academic publications, Humanitarian supply chains, Popular science, Service management, Socks and sandals

The budget airline version of capacity utilisation

Posted on September 23, 2010 by | 3 Comments

The note was meant for “service junkies”: Ryanair’s plans to introduce “standing seats” with less leg space but more storage place on planes. Capacity utilisation would in principle go up – if customers are indeed prepared to squeeze even more. Are they?

Gyöngyi

PS Thanks to Mark Davis for the link. And a bit more on service junkies, ever heard of “service networking“? Here is an example.

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Posted in Service management, Socks and sandals