A hybrid approach to configure eco-efficient supply chains under consideration of performance and risk aspects

Formal models that support multi-criteria decision making represent a strongly growing area in sustainable supply chain management research. However, uncertainties and risks are seldom considered in quantitative models for green supply chain (SC) design. The paper at hand suggests a hybrid approach to configure an eco-efficient SC for a new product under consideration of economic and environmental risks. Discrete-event simulation is applied to assess the financial, operational and environmental performance of different SC configuration options while the value-at-risk concept is adapted to evaluate related SC risks. The analytic hierarchy process is employed to solve the resulting multi-criteria decision problem of choosing the best option. The approach is illustrated at a case example of a fast moving consumer goods manufacturer.     

Conceptual framework for measuring carbon footprint in supply chains

Over the last few years, the fight against climate change has become one of the main topics of international debate. Hence, consumer behaviour has begun to change as they have started to assess the environmental impacts of the products and services they buy. Although various methods exist for measuring environmental (e.g. carbon) impacts, there is no international consensus about the most appropriate one. In addition, calculations can also be affected by limited data availability and uncertainty surrounding the value of key variables. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for measuring and analysing the carbon footprint in supply chains. This research contributes to the knowledge and practice of green supply chain management, at the corporate level, by providing robustness. This aids the decision-making process by identifying strategies in order to reach the efficiency that can be achieved by reducing CO₂ emission over the supply network. The framework is validated using real data from a supply chain belonging to the agro-industrial sector. Finally, these results and experience is generalised in order to show the difficulties and challenges in the measuring task.     

Green supply chain performance measurement using the analytic hierarchy process: a comparative analysis of manufacturing organisations

The main purpose of this research is to develop and deploy an analytical framework for measuring the environmental performance of manufacturing supply chains. This work's theoretical bases combine and reconcile three major areas: supply chain management, environmental management and performance measurement. Researchers have suggested many empirical criteria for green supply chain (GSC) performance measurement and proposed both qualitative and quantitative frameworks. However, these are mainly operational in nature and specific to the focal company. This research develops an innovative GSC performance measurement framework by integrating supply chain processes (supplier relationship management, internal supply chain management and customer relationship management) with organisational decision levels (both strategic and operational). Environmental planning, environmental auditing, management commitment, environmental performance, economic performance and operational performance are the key level constructs. The proposed framework is then applied to three selected manufacturing organisations in the UK. Their GSC performance is measured and benchmarked by using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), a multiple-attribute decision-making technique. The AHP-based framework offers an effective way to measure and benchmark organisations’ GSC performance. This study has both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically it contributes holistic constructs for designing a GSC and managing it for sustainability; and practically it helps industry practitioners to measure and improve the environmental performance of their supply chain.     

A knowledge chain management framework to support integrated decisions in global supply chains

Knowledge management has been identified as a key enabler to achieve organisation’s value chain competitiveness. It, however, has been facing fresh challenges in a global supply chain setting. This paper proposes a global knowledge chain management (GKCM) framework that identifies and prioritises critical knowledge that a global supply chain can focus on to support integrated decisions. The framework explores three types of global context knowledge, namely global market knowledge, global capacity knowledge and global supply network configuration knowledge. Empirical study has been undertaken within the manufacturing industry to evaluate the GKCM framework. Analytic network process has been explored as a key method to assess the importance of the global knowledge constructs from supply chain managers’ perspectives. A key contribution of the paper is that it advances existing knowledge chain management approaches within one organisation and its local supply chain to include the global context knowledge applicable to global manufacturing settings, and highlights how the GKCM framework can support global supply chain integrated decisions.     

Supply chain strategies for speciality foods: a Norwegian case study

Despite strong market interest in speciality foods, producers find market access and distribution challenging. This exploratory research includes a literature review and five case studies of supply chains relating to shellfish, cheese, meat, potato and miscellaneous speciality foods in the mid-Norway region. The study identifies key supply chain configuration parameters from the extant literature, and these are used to analyse the cases. The study makes three main contributions to the literature: an analytical framework for analysing the supply chain characteristics of speciality foods; important supply chain factors for accessing the conventional food supply chain; and five propositions for improving market access. We argue that the speciality foods supply chain should be configured according to these propositions to ensure responsiveness to customer needs and to strengthen market access.     

具有遗憾值约束的鲁棒供应链网络设计模型研究

考虑不确定性环境,研究战略层次的供应链网络鲁棒设计问题,目标是设计参数发生摄动时,供应链性能能够保持稳健性。基于鲁棒解的定义,建立从上游供应商选择到下游设施选址-需求分配的供应链网络设计鲁棒优化模型;提出确定遗憾值限定系数上限和下限的方法,允许决策者调节鲁棒水平,选择多种供应链网络结构;通过模型分解与协调,设计了供应链节点配置的禁忌搜索算法。算例的计算结果表明了禁忌搜索算法具有良好的收敛特性,以及在处理大规模问题上的优越性;同时也反映了利用鲁棒优化模型进行供应链网络设计,可以有效规避投资风险。     

复杂供应链网络视域下关系资本对供应链融资作用机制研究--有调节的多重中介效应模型构建与检验

从复杂供应链网络的视角出发,以供应链网络内各节点中小企业为研究对象,依照"资源-结构-行为-绩效"的思路,揭示供应链网络内中小企业积累的关系资本对提升其供应链融资获取频率的作用机制,并通过构建多群组SEM模型,验证供应链复杂性的潜在调节效应。结果显示:(1)中小企业积累的关系资本对供应链融资频率的提升有显著的促进作用;(2)对比"关系资本-供应链设计-供应链融资"与"关系资本-供应链整合-供应链融资"的拟合结果发现,两个特定变量的中介效应具有显著差异,且以供应链设计、整合为连续中介变量的多重链式中介效应模型成立;(3)供应链复杂性显著调节中小企业关系资本对供应链融资的转化机制链条,供应链复杂性越高,节点中小企业获取供应链融资更依赖"关系资本-供应链设计-供应链整合-供应链融资"的多重链式传导机制传导。这意味着,在复杂供应链网络当中,中小企业一方面需要提升自身关系资本积累,另一方面更要加强其在网络当中的位置优化,提升供应链整合水平,为获取更多供应链融资打下坚实基础。     

社会控制与供应链绩效的相互作用关系探讨——以依赖及供应链整合为中介

供应链各节点企业彼此相互依赖，这种依赖关系如何为管理者所利用，并借助适当的关系治理来促进互惠互利的依赖关系的建立，进而提升供应链整体竞争力具有重要的战略意义。本文拟以社会控制机制和依赖为切入点，探讨其与供应链整合和供应链绩效的深层作用机理，并进而运用结构方程模型（SEM）对社会控制、依赖和供应链整合对绩效的作用路径进行实践模拟。实证结果表明，1）社会控制对依赖、供应链整合和供应链绩效有显著的正向促进作用；2）依赖在社会控制对供应链整合的作用关系中起着不完全的中介作用，且间接作用大于直接作用；3）社会控制可以通过依赖、供应链整合及二者的因果关系间接作用于供应链绩效，但是依赖的中介效应最大（44%），依赖和供应链整合的因果关系中介效应次之（37%），整合的中介效应最小（19%）；4）规模对社会控制/依赖与供应链整合/供应链绩效的作用关系具有调节效应。     

供应链的利润博弈与均衡定价

供应链涉及多个利益主体,优化供应链的全局效益需要成员企业的协调来实现。效率评估的非参数法应用广泛,但是单纯的效率优化未考虑资源的可替代性和再分配,忽视了投入(产出)结构调整释放的优化空间。对于效率分解,取折衷或单边最优的方案不完全符合企业追求各自利益最大化的目标。本文针对两级供应链的利润优化问题建立一般化的分析框架,同时考虑了技术进步和资源可替代性的影响,对成员企业的利润博弈展开讨论,探讨了合作博弈如何促成供应链实现集权模式下的最优。通过建立议价模型得出了纳什均衡基础上的成员企业最优利润组合,并给出了实现最优分配方案的中间产品均衡定价。     

Sharing Responsibility for Product Recovery Across the Supply Chain

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) programs typically hold the producer—a single actor defined by the regulator—responsible for the environmental impacts of end‐of‐life products. This is despite emphasis on the need to involve all actors in the supply chain in order to best achieve the aims of EPR. In this paper, we examine the economic and environmental implications of product recovery mandates and shared responsibility within a supply chain. We use a two‐echelon model consisting of a supplier and a manufacturer to determine the impacts of product collection and recycling mandates on the incentive to recycle and resulting profits in the integrated and decentralized supply chains. For the decentralized supply chain, we demonstrate how the sharing of responsibility for product recovery between the echelons can improve total supply chain profit and suggest a contract menu that can Pareto‐improve profits. To examine both the economic and environmental performance associated with responsibility sharing, we propose a social welfare construct that includes supply chain profit, consumer surplus, and the externalities associated with virgin material extraction, product consumption, and disposal of nonrecycled products. Using a numerical example, we discuss how responsibility sharing may or may not improve social welfare. The results of this paper are of value to firms either anticipating or subject to product recovery legislation, and to social planners that attempt to balance economic and environmental impacts and ensure fairness of such legislation.     

Enhancing competitive advantage by constructing supply chains to achieve superior performance

This paper studies the impact of configuring supply chain design strategies on performance using real-world example of aligning different supply chain practices to supply chain strategies to achieve competitive advantage. The paper first carries out a synthesis of literature categorising the supply chain strategies, practices and linking them to contexts and competitive advantage. The paper then uses a case study methodology to explore the process of adjusting supply chain strategies and aligned practices to gain competitive advantage in different contexts. The paper reports two case examples of a leaf tobacco company and a mosquito coil manufacturer from India facing different demand characteristics and implementing different supply chain strategies for enhancing performance objectives. Both companies faced a change in their business environment and competitive priorities. In both the examples, companies used a combination of practices for implementing appropriate supply chain strategies to gain competitive advantage. This paper contributes to the academic discipline of supply chain management through developing theory showing the transition of supply chain strategies for achieving superior performance in different business environments. The paper has wide managerial implications by reporting real-life implementation of different supply chain strategies thus bridging the practice-theory gap.     

Operations Risk Management: Overview of Paul Kleindorfer's Contributions

This paper reviews Paul Kleindorfer's contributions to Operations Management (OM), with a special focus on his research on risk management. An annotated bibliography of selected other contributions reviews the breadth of topics that have occupied Kleindorfer's research attention over his now 45 + years of research. These include optimal control theory, scheduling theory, decision sciences, investment planning and peak load pricing, plus a number of important applications in network industries and insurance. In the area of operations risk management, we review recent work that Kleindorfer and his colleagues in the Wharton Risk Center have undertaken on environmental management and operations, focusing on process safety and environmental risks in the chemical industry. This work is directly related to Kleindorfer's work in the broader area of “sustainable operations”, which he, Kal Singhal and Luk Van Wassenhove recently surveyed as part of the new initiative at POMS to encompass sustainable management practices within the POMS community. Continuing in the area of supply chain risks, the paper reviews Kleindorfer's contributions to the development of an integrated framework for contracting and risk hedging for supply management. The emphasis on alignment of pricing, performance and risk management in this framework is presaged in the work undertaken by Kleindorfer and his co‐authors in the 1980s on after‐sales support services for high‐technology products. This work on supply chain risk, and its successors, is reviewed here in light of its growing importance in managing the unbundled and global supply chains characteristic of the new economy.     

适应性供应链的复杂网络模型研究

面对经济全球化、顾客需求的多样化和众多不确定性因素,传统的供应链必须向适应性供应链转变。适应性供应链已经开始引起企业和学术界的关注。本文探讨了适应性供应链的概念,指出学习是提高供应链适应能力的一个重要途径,并提出了适应性供应链的一个初步模型框架。然后建立了供应链的复杂网络演化模型,导出了其基本统计规律,最后给出了仿真结果。研究对于探讨供应链的复杂动态演化规律具有一定意义。     

基于新产消合一考虑链间竞争的供应链价值最大化研究

在原有的单一供应链价值创造研究的基础上,通过考虑供应链间的竞争关系,完整研究了供应链价值最大化问题。首先基于新产消合一理念应用Cournot博弈构建了考虑两条供应链间竞争的供应链价值最大化模型,然后就供应链创造的整体价值及其与企业联盟对消费者利益的关注程度、消费者对企业联盟利益的关注程度之间的关系、企业联盟价值、消费者价值等问题进行了讨论,获得了一些有益的结论,最后通过数值分析对主要结论的有效性进行了验证。本文研究对于新产消合一理念下全面揭示供应链价值的提升更具有一般性意义。     

Supply chain reconfiguration opportunities arising from additive manufacturing technologies in the digital era

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore the impact of additive manufacturing (AM) technologies on the configuration opportunities of supply chains (SCs) within the digital manufacturing era. To this effect, we first conduct a critical taxonomy of existing research efforts and then propose an integrated decision-making process for the design and management of SCs defined by digital manufacturing technologies. Following, we provide an integrated framework for future SC reconfiguration opportunities arising from the adoption of AM on a supply network setting. Our analysis demonstrates the significant ramifications of AM techniques on SC configuration and sustainability performance as opposed to conventional value networks; however, existing research is evidently limited due to scope related challenges and the inherent complexity at the manufacturing echelon of the respective supply networks.     

Quality management in outsourced global fashion supply chains: an exploratory case study

Abstract

Outsourcing production is common in the fashion industry but can lead to quality defects. This paper thus sheds light on how quality is managed in outsourced fashion supply chains. We propose a new trilogy for managing quality control in outsourced fashion supply chains: (1) manufacturer quality assessment, (2) quality management in production and (3) quality inspection and assurance. We implement an exploratory case study methodology. Through a qualitative case study of a leading global Japanese fashion retailer that outsources production mainly to China, we contribute to quality management studies by developing a new quality control trilogy for outsourced supply chains. Our findings can provide fashion retailers with guidance on controlling product quality in outsourced supply chains and developing strategies for improving supply chain performance. We also demonstrate the importance of contract and relationship management, supply chain integration and quality visibility in enhancing product and process quality in outsourced fashion supply chains.     

Product Design and Supply Chain Coordination Under Extended Producer Responsibility

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation focuses on the life‐cycle environmental performance of products and has significant implications for management theory and practice. In this paper, we examine the influence of EPR policy parameters on product design and coordination incentives in a durable product supply chain. We model a manufacturer supplying a remanufacturable product to a customer over multiple periods. The manufacturer invests in two design attributes of the product that impact costs incurred by the supply chain—performance, which affects the environmental impact of the product during use, and remanufacturability, which affects the environmental impact post‐use. Consistent with the goals of EPR policies, the manufacturer and the customer are required to share the environmental costs incurred over the product's life cycle. The customer has a continuing need for the services of the product and optimizes between the costs of product replacement and the costs incurred during use. We demonstrate how charges during use and post‐use can be used as levers to encourage environmentally favorable product design. We analyze the impact of supply chain coordination on design choices and profit and discuss contracts that can be used to achieve coordination, both under symmetric and asymmetric information about customer attributes.     

制造业供应链伙伴间态度性承诺对供应链脆弱性作用机制

构建供应链伙伴间态度性承诺对供应链脆弱性作用的理论框架,以252家中小型制造业企业为研究对象,基于enter层次回归分析法检验供应链动态能力在供应链伙伴间态度性承诺与供应链脆弱性关系间的中介作用以及供应链外部社会资本在供应链伙伴间态度性承诺与供应链脆弱性关系间的调节作用;运用多重中介效应检验模型验证供应链动态能力的3个维度同时作为供应链伙伴间态度性承诺与供应链脆弱性关系间中介变量的合理性。研究结果表明,供应链伙伴间忠诚性承诺显著降低供应链脆弱性,供应链伙伴间计算性承诺与供应链脆弱性呈U形关系,供应链动态能力在供应链伙伴间态度性承诺与供应链脆弱性关系间发挥部分中介作用,内外互动强度和外部网络密度分别显著调节供应链伙伴间态度性承诺与供应链脆弱性的关系,内外信任程度和内外共同语言在供应链伙伴间态度性承诺与供应链脆弱性的关系间发挥不显著的调节作用。     

A framework for food supply chain digitalization: lessons from Thailand

Abstract

The promise of digitalization is enormous and nowhere is it more critical than in its potential to transform food supply chain. Consumers have become more educated and are demanding real-time updated information on foods they consumed through digital media. They are also increasingly demanding to know if the foods they consume are environmentally and socially sustainable or not. As a result, food product traceability, safety, and sustainability issues have become crucial concerns to food retailers, distributors, processors, and farmers. Digitalization allows food supply chains to be highly connected, efficient, and responsive to customer needs and regulation requirements. However, digitalizing a traditional food supply chain is challenging and resource demanding. This is more so for developing countries where moving food from farms to consumers can take months as it travels through an array of middlemen. Unfortunately, little is available in the existing literature on food supply chain digitalization. So far, current researchers mainly explore the benefits of digitalization. Using cases in three companies, this paper explores the practices, challenges, and opportunities faced by Thailand food manufacturers in digitalizing their food supply chains. A framework for food supply chain digitalization is proposed and its implications for research and practices are discussed.