Green is the new black in SCM…and similar conversion has taken place in Harvard Business Review.
Apparently, “no facet of doing business remains untouched”.
Where? How?
This has not been translated in many (all) of the textbooks I teach in Logistics and Operations Management.
Árni
Categories: Socks and sandals · Supply Chain Management · Sustainability
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
The sustainable agenda has yet to find its way into textbooks within SCM. Besides sporadic paragraphs, and a occasional chapter (very rare!), most textbooks are centered around traditional performance objectives followed by related strategies and structures. Even titles of the textbooks contain more or less the same wording but in different order; operations, logistics, management, strategic, supply chain, planning, production………
Gyöngyi and I (Árni) want to do something about that.
We want to bring the sustainable agenda into the class-room in a format other than of journal articles. We want to experiment with disintermediation and the idea of open access.
More to follow on…..SCM for societal impact.
Árni
Categories: Education & Management Development · Supply Chain Management · Sustainability
Wow, the research group (and quite an impressive one) on green logistics has caught up! It’s not that long time ago it has been established, and now you can already find several reports and working papers on their website. Definitely worth while to check it out!
Gyöngyi
Categories: Academic publications · Sustainability
Here is a brief piece on Reverse Logistics I wrote for Supply Management, published in their issue from 31st January 2008.
Is Reverse the Top Gear in logistics?
Árni
Categories: Reverse Logistics · Sustainability
We thought there were too few SCM-related podcasts out there so we started to add on to them with our own 
Thanks Steve Brady for a new podcast on sustainability in supply chains - which can be found here. More podcasts are to follow, just check out Steve’s website regularly!
Gyöngyi
P.S. and thanks Steve for a promotion
Categories: Socks and sandals · Supply Chain Management · Sustainability
Working from home might be quite usual for researchers (also in SCM), but this article on the implications of home-based work on the supply chain is quite an eye-opener: There are heaps of health & safety issues to consider, as well as in fact productivity issues. Interestingly, it also ties in to a different view on microfinancing…
Gyöngyi
P.S. For the case you knew this all and have better stories to tell, here’s a supply chain and corporate responsibility award you may want to apply for.
Categories: Supply Chain Management · Sustainability
Who hasn’t played the beer game in a basic SCM class? (which is btw also dubbed the “flight simulator for management education“…) It’s so much more effective to play it than to explain the Forrester effect over and over… Back from my undergrad times, I will never forget learning how to write an algorithm while trying to figure out how “Settlers” worked. Or playing “Transport Tycoon” over and over again. Nerdy? Perhaps. But also effective for the learning process. And there is no more fun than to discuss the existence of transportation companies in Second Life with students (which is, however, still a mystery to me; why use, say, a plane, or a sailboat, if you can teleport yourself?).
There are so many interesting games coming up every day, it’s a shame so few seem to use them. They don’t even require any wizardry from the teachers, there are also online versions of even the beer game. Or, for those into questions of sustainability, check out simulation games on “building a sustainable city” or different ways to look at a “sustainable campus“. Who said education can’t be fun?
Gyöngyi
PS. For those inclined to play “real beer games“, here’s a link to some of those as well. And special thanks to Manfred Gronalt for getting me hooked on settlers - and the questions of algorithms behind a game.
Categories: Education & Management Development · Socks and sandals · Supply Chain Management · Sustainability
With the first cup of coffee this morning, a quick word count of the proceedings of this year’s LRN conference and Nofoma conference result in following:
Nofoma 2007 proceedings (1172 pages):
Sustainable: 49
Sustainability: 26
LRN 2007 proceedings (765 pages):
Sustainable: 188
Sustainability: 100
Both conferences represent logistics and supply chain management. The immediate difference lies in the Nordic dominance of the Nofoma, and the fact that a great number of participants at the LRN conference work in UK. There is some but not large overlap of participants between these two conferences.
Is the sense of urgency greater in UK than the Nordic countries? Who is talking the walk, and who is walking the talk?
Árni
Categories: Carbon management · Sustainability · environment
