Lean and green supply chain management through intermodal transport: insights from the fast moving consumer goods industry

Combining efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability is crucial for companies to succeed in today’s context of fierce competition. This paper investigates how intermodal transport can be adopted for managing supply chains according to a Lean and Green approach. A scenario-based estimation tool was developed to quantify the potential demand for intermodal transport. The tool was applied to the Italian Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) supply chain. Following, a single longitudinal case study on an FMCG company (Procter & Gamble) was carried out to investigate the enabling factors for the adoption of intermodal transport. Our results show that it is possible to shift demand from road to rail: a number of pathways for action were identified that related to planning and management, assets, train services, collaboration, legal issues and incentive schemes. Also, a collaborative business model for making the modal shift possible was presented. This paper is original because it offers an investigation of Lean and Green Supply Chain Management through intermodal transport by adopting a supply chain perspective and providing a bridging link between academic studies and field evidence.     

The Strategic Manipulation of Transnational Temporalities

Abstract

While it is now widely recognized that globalization is socially constructed, time is often still seen as a natural unalterable force. Drawing on the literature on the social construction of time, we explore the role of human agency in the interaction of time and globalization by developing the concept of temporal systems. These systems are assemblages that bring together temporal artefacts such as clocks and schedules, the temporalities of the natural world and the body, and social practices involving agency, power, and organization. We then explore, through four illustrative examples, how such systems interact with and constitute globalization. These examples are: the initial emergence and contemporary operation of world standard time; the manipulation of the future and speed in global financial markets; the rise of informal international organizations in global governance; and the role of temporality in the strategic behaviour of multinational corporations.     

Quadratic Concavity and Determinacy of Equilibrium

One of the central features of classical models of competitive markets is the generic determinacy of competitive equilibria. For smooth economies with a finite number of commodities and a finite number of consumers, almost all initial endowments admit only a finite number of competitive equilibria, and these equilibria vary (locally) smoothly with endowments; thus equilibrium comparative statics are locally determinate. This paper establishes parallel results for economies with finitely many consumers and infinitely many commodities. The most important new condition we introduce, quadratic concavity, rules out preferences in which goods are perfect substitutes globally, locally, or asymptotically. Our framework is sufficiently general to encompass many of the models that have proved important in the study of continuous‐time trading in financial markets, trading over an infinite time horizon, and trading of finely differentiated commodities.     

新能源汽车产业专利池的形成机制

针对新能源汽车产业的模块化发展特征,采用动态博弈方法研究该产业中基于产业链的纵向一体化企业和纯上游研发企业专利池的形成机制。构建三阶段的动态博弈模型:第一阶段,专利所有权人决定是否组成专利池;第二阶段,企业根据许可方式来预测行业产量对于许可费率的反应函数;第三阶段,下游制造商进入市场,同时决定最终产品的产量来最大化其利润。根据博弈分析的结果,发现新能源汽车产业纵向一体化企业与纯上游研发企业组建一个专利池,那么无论是纵向一体化企业还是纯上游研发企业,它们获取的利润都要更为理想。同时专利池的组建也会使得下游市场产品总产量提高,价格降低。政府有关部门可以在许可费科学分配、研发合作以及法律法规建设等方面发挥强有力的引导作用,助力新能源汽车产业的专利池发展与长期稳定运营。     

Renewal theory and the sequential design of experiments with two states of nature

In the sequential design of experiments in experimentel is sequentially performing experiments to help him make an inference about the true state of nature. Using results from renewal twenty at derive approximations for the operations characteristics and average sample numbers for this problem when there are two states of nature.

A critical problem in the sequential design of experiments is finding a good procedure. We investigate a Bayesian formulation of this problem and use our approximations to approximate the Bayes risk. Minimization of this approximate Bayes risk over procedures is discussed as a method of finding a good procedure, but difficulties are encountered due to the discrete time character of the sequential process. To avoid these difficulties, we consider minimization of an approximation related to a diffusion process. This leads to a simple rule for the sequential selection of experiments.     

试论乾嘉时期苏州浒墅关的粮食流通

乾隆时期,苏州的浒墅关是江南重要的粮食转运中心,粮食商品流通的增加,为浒墅关税收提供了充足的财源;乾嘉之际由于受产粮区商品粮数量的减少、粮价增加、交通条件的恶化以及江南自然经济程度的增加等因素的影响,经过浒墅关中转的粮食大为减少,这在一定程度上影响了近代江南经济的转型.     

Innovations in humanitarian supply chains: the case of cash transfer programmes

Abstract

Cash transfer programmes (CTPs) are revolutionizing humanitarian supply chains (HSCs), yet just how CTPs are to be understood as innovation, and how they impact on HSCs, remains unclear. Innovation in the humanitarian context more often than not stems from outside humanitarian organizations – that is innovation occurs in their supply chain. The aim of this study is to further the understanding of supply chain innovation (SCI) in the humanitarian context. Based on empirical evidence this article suggests a supply chain innovation model (SCIM). This SCIM is useful because it allows different processes to be understood and compared, by providing guidance on how innovations progress. The contribution of this research is threefold: First, the research presents a SCIM for the humanitarian context. Second, this is the first application of a SCIM to the humanitarian environment. Finally, the research is field based and grounded in empirical observations thus adding to the literature and offering insights to practice.     

关于我国国际服务贸易可持续发展的思考

全面均衡发展服务业及国际服务贸易是我国经济可持续发展的要求,在服务贸易发展战略的制定中,必须坚持科学的发展现。本文基于对国际服务贸易的行业发展趋势、科学的规划产业结构以及现有加工业的产业体系完善、教育与服务贸易发展的关系等方面考虑,就我国国际服务贸易发展中的产业结构规划、投资模式,面临的问题和应对措施等做了简要论述。     

论商品经济生产的一般性

商品经济生产是存在几个社会形态的生产形式,它在不同的社会形态中有不同的特征,商品经济生产在生产的条件、生产过程、生产目的和手段上的一般共同性,是社会主义经济建设必须遵循的.区别商品经济生产的一般规定性和其特殊性,有利于我们更好的用商品经济规律,建设社会主义.