A decision-making model for Lean,Agile, Resilient and Green supply chain management

In modern business environments, an effective supply chain management (SCM) is crucial to business continuity. Competition between supply chains (SC) has replaced the traditional competition between companies. Lean, Agile, Resilient and Green (LARG) paradigms are advocated as the foundation of a competitive SCM. To make a supply chain more competitive, capable of responding to the demands of customers with agility and capable of responding effectively to unexpected disturbance, in conjugation with environmental responsibilities and the necessity to eliminate processes that add no value, companies must implement a set of LARG SCM practices and key performance indicators (KPI) to measure their influence on the SC performance. However, the selection of the best LARG SCM practices and KPIs is a complex problem, involving dependencies and feedbacks. This paper proposes an integrated LARG analytic network process (ANP) model to support decision-making in choosing the most appropriate practices and KPIs to be implemented by companies in an SC. To validate the model in an exploratory approach, a case study in an automaker supply chain is presented.     

A supply chain sustainability innovation framework and evaluation methodology

Sustainability is hinged on innovation. The importance of sustainable innovation management in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) cannot be underestimated. Studies on SSCM have emphasised the need for sustainable innovation in achieving sustainability but none provide deep insights into sustainable innovation management in SSCM implementation. This lack of research depth stimulates this study to identify and investigate criteria for sustainable supply chain management innovation advancement. This paper proposes a sustainable innovation criteria framework for investigating sustainable supply chains in manufacturing companies. To exemplify the applicability and efficiency of the proposed framework, a sample of five Indian manufacturing companies are used to evaluate and prioritise the sustainable innovation management criteria, using the ‘best–worst’ multi-criteria decision-making (BW-MCDM) model. The criteria weights for all companies from BWM are aggregated, averaged and used for ranking. The respondent managers viewed ‘financial availability for innovation’ as the most important sustainable innovation sub-criteria. The results of the study will inform industrial managers, practitioners and decision-makers on which criteria to focus on during the implementation stage, to increase sustainability in manufacturing supply chains, and further advance corporate and supply chain sustainable development. The framework may also serve as a theoretical construct for a future empirical study on sustainable supply chain innovation in the manufacturing sector. This paper sets the stage for further research in sustainable innovation practices in the manufacturing sector and its supply chains.     

A green supply chain is a requirement for profitability

Many companies are not dramatically changing to more sustainable environmental practices despite pressure from the investment community, the government and consumers. This study explores a simple model that companies can use to understand and improve supply chain sustainability practices. It applies this model in two case studies, Coca-Cola, a leader in global sustainability, and Apple, a company that has only recently started to develop a sustainability strategy. The model was developed through a review of existing research and an application of supply chain principles. The results of this study demonstrate that following this model to eliminate waste throughout the supply chain will make the supply chain more profitable. The outcomes from this study highlight the importance for every company to do so in order to stay competitive. This study is unique in the relative simplicity of its model, combined with the supporting evidence that a sustainable supply chain is the same as a supply chain that is using best practices to reduce waste.     

The significance of organizational change management for sustainable competitiveness in manufacturing: exploring the firm archetypes

The successful development and deployment of adequate sustainable manufacturing strategies are still open issues and of utmost interest for research and practice. Guided by this particular challenge, we investigate the significance of organisational change management for sustainable competitiveness in manufacturing. By using six case studies from the Lombardia region in Italy and basing our research on the theoretical constructs of competitive aggressiveness and organisational change, we discover four archetypes of companies that show an increasing sustainable competitiveness with an increasing formalism and persistence in organisational change. Our findings suggest that change management practices are conditional hypothesis for creating competitive advantage through sustainability, and implementation gaps do hinder companies in realising the full potential. The study offers guidance to stakeholders, on how change management actions may potentially affect company performance in the manufacturing sector, as well as providing direction on the impact improved planning and leadership instances can have on the sustainability performance.     

Decision support frameworks and metrics for sustainable development of minerals and metals

The Australian government-supported Co-operative Research Centre for Sustainable Resource Processing (CSRP) has undertaken a comprehensive review of sustainability metrics and decision support frameworks used by the global mining/minerals/metals sector. This paper provides a summary of that larger review. In particular, attention is given to the extent to which the plethora of current tools and approaches used by the industry are similar; the degree to which they conform with more formal approaches to decision making, as espoused by the management sciences community; and how indicators are, or should be, used to support decision making, or to set targets for achieving more sustainable outcomes from practices within the industry. We cite experience from six major companies within the sector as examples of current practice. Finally, we suggest how current best practice should be augmented by additional tools, which focus on information quality and management.     

Collaborative mechanisms for sustainability-oriented supply chain initiatives: state of the art,role assessment and research opportunities

Whether from government policies, customer expectations or personal beliefs, there is increasing pressure on firms and their supply chains to adopt sustainable practices. Manufacturing companies are particularly targeted, for example, to reduce CO₂ emissions, offer sustainable products, etc. Research in this field has significantly increased in recent years. Most research states the importance of collaboration with upstream and downstream entities as a critical success factor when aiming for a sustainable supply chain and proposes various collaborative mechanisms (CMs) to enable firms in the implementation of a sustainability-oriented initiative. The goal of this paper is to investigate the role of collaboration in these initiatives and explore the proposed CMs via a systematic literature review method. A total of 404 articles were reviewed and the multitude of CMs proposed in the literature were classified into seven categories: relationship management, contractual and economic practices, joint practices, technological and information sharing practices, governance practices, assessment practices, and supply chain design. This systematic mapping of the field provides an in-depth view of the current state of research as well as research gaps. It also intends to help practitioners by highlighting the role played by these mechanisms in four phases of sustainable supply chain deployment.     

A paler shade of green: implications of green product deletion on supply chains

Product management activities by operations, marketing, and finance functions have typically focused on the innovation, acquisition, growth, and management of product lines and products. The same is true when considering product management for green products. The latter stages of critical strategic decisions related to product deletion or discontinuation have received less emphasis. In this conceptual paper, the focus is on green product deletion implications for supply chain management and operations. Organisations may view green product deletion as evolving from a deep green to a paler shade of green in their product offerings. A proposed strategic framework pays particular attention to the implications of the green product deletion decision for supply chain processes and operational competencies. In this situation, lessened organisational greenness needs to be weighed against other organisational and operational competencies. The strategic and inter-organisational relationships associated with this decision help set the stage for future research on this critical, yet neglected, organisational and operational supply chain issue.     

Effects of human resource management practices on logistics and supply chain competencies – evidence from China logistics service market

The Chinese logistics service market is a vibrant and highly contested arena. The industry, however, has been characterised as operationally inefficient in comparison with those of the developed economies. Shortage of logistics human resources and lack of logistics expertise have been identified as two of the key contributory factors. Based on responses from 76 Chinese logistics service providers to a survey conducted in 2010, this study explores whether, and how, four sets of human resource management (HRM) practices contribute to nurturing three logistics and supply chain (L&SC) competencies in the Chinese logistics service market. Results from a hierarchical multiple regression analysis show that not all HRM practices were equally effective in building L&SC competencies. While training and development, and recruitment and selection were significant in contributing to nurturing the three L&SC competencies, both performance management and reward management did not. These findings suggest that conventional HRM practices designed to reward individual performance may not be suited to nurturing team-based L&SC competencies in the Chinese context. The implications of these findings were discussed and directions for further studies offered.     

Traceability as a means to investigate supply chain sustainability: the real case of a leather shoe supply chain

In recent years, the growing attention to environmental challenges has shown that these issues are becoming of more and more interest to both research and industry. Companies are expected to ensure their products are fully traceable and more sustainable, which requires the involvement of all of the actors in the production network. According to this aim, this study proposes a structured approach that uses the traditional traceability concept as a means to identify the main information needed to assess environmental impacts along the whole supply chain (SC). The proposed approach is composed of four main steps: (i) SC modelling to identify all stakeholders and their inter-relations, (ii) data sharing to collect all relevant data, (iii) data elaboration to calculate performance at different levels of detail and (iv) result interpretation to optimise the SC. The distributed implementation of the approach at different SC steps represents a useful means to practically realise a sustainable SC management. A case study involving a leather shoe SC is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach in identifying criticalities, supporting the selection of the most appropriate suppliers and correctly setting a management strategy towards the optimisation of internal and external traceability and environmental sustainability performances.     

Agile supply chain strategy and supply chain performance: complementary roles of supply chain practices and information systems capability for agility

The paper examines the mediating effect of supply chain (SC) practices on the relationship between agile supply chain (ASC) strategy and SC performance. It further examines the moderating effect of information systems (IS) capability for agility on this mediated relationship. Using the theoretical lenses of complementarity and the information processing view of the supply chain, we hypothesise that strategic supplier partnership, customer relationship, postponement and lean practices, mediate the relationship between ASC strategy and SC performance. We further hypothesise that IS capability for agility moderates each of these mediated relationships. We empirically test the hypotheses using survey data from members of senior and executive management in the logistics/supply chain functions of 205 firms. The paper contributes to the literature on ASCs by theoretically explaining and empirically demonstrating how SC practices and IS capability for agility act together to effect a positive relationship between ASC strategy and supply chain performance.     

Resilience strategies for sustainable supply chains under budget constraints in the post COVID-19 era

The COVID-19 outbreak has caused uncertainty risk surges, increased sustainable supply chain vulnerabilities, and challenges to sustainable supply chain resilience (SSCR) management. Therefore, improving SSCR is necessary to alleviate vulnerabilities, and SSCR management must generate large capital investments. However, the economic downturn brought about by the COVID-19 epidemic has made some companies have limited budgets that can be used to improve SSCR. Therefore, the design of resilience solutions needs to fully consider the constraints of budgetary costs. Most of the existing related literature only discusses optimal resilience solutions under certain cost constraints, so such resilience solutions cannot be applied to most enterprises. In this study, we set the cost constraint as a variable quantity, using resilience efficiency and customer satisfaction as indicators, to determine the changing laws of optimal resilience strategies when cost constraints change. These rules can be applied to enterprises with different budgeted costs. Our findings suggest that companies should prioritize sacrificing resilience measures (RMs) related to adaptive capacity when budget costs gradually decline, and RMs related to absorptive capacity are indispensable at all budget levels. Furthermore, the pursuit of environmental and social sustainability cannot be abandoned, no matter how limited the flexible budget may be.     

Information system utilization in supply chain integration efforts

This paper investigates a set of advisable strategies for information systems utilization in supply chain integration initiatives. Through an analysis of structural relationships among the ways in which information systems are utilized for supply chain integration--i.e. Infrastructural Support, Value Creation Management, Logistical Operations--and supply chain management performance, we argue that there might be a recommended sequence in using information systems for supply chain integration. Tests of hypotheses relating to information systems utilization using empirical data from manufacturing firms indicate that, as the stage of integration moves from independent operation to internal and on to external integration, the focus of information systems utilization should shift from infrastructural support to value creation management and logistical operations, and this change of IS utilization focus can lead to sustainable competitiveness.     

An integrated approach to evaluating the production system in closed-loop supply chains

The increasing demands for environmental resource protection and sustainable development have been forcing enterprises to put sustainable supply chain management on their agendas in recent years. At the same time, intense global competition requires organisations to adopt practices that enable them to provide high-quality products and services. In this paper, we consider the problem of comprehensively evaluating the production system in closed-loop supply chains. We first propose an evaluation framework that consists of economic evaluation, product quality evaluation and ecological evaluation modules. Based on mathematical probability theory and the dynamic characteristics of reverse supply chain logistics, we then focus on the evolution dynamics in the quality evaluation dimension, where the concept of product quality, which builds on the reliability and the time-utility value of a product, is proposed. The basic production evaluation model is then extended to incorporate different sustainable procurement strategies, which take into consideration the trade-offs among cost, environment and quality. An outline and corresponding flow chart of corporate procurement strategy optimisation are provided which allow the proposed evaluation model to be implemented in computer-aided decision-making, further providing decision support for production system and supply chain management. Simulation and case studies are presented to promote a better understanding of the model approach and its managerial implications. Results also suggest that quality characteristics of components and sustainable procurement strategies are two important factors that determine the final production performance and should be paid special attention in closed-loop supply chain practice.     

Throughput/inventory dollar-days: TOC-based measures for supply chain collaboration

As the semiconductor industry moves away from vertical integration, performance measures play an increasingly important role to ensure effective collaboration. This paper demonstrates that the theory of constraints (TOC)-based measures, Throughput and Inventory Dollar-Days (T/IDD), induce autonomous supply chain (SC) links to function as a synergistic whole and thereby, improve the performance of the whole SC network significantly. We model an SC network of a well-known TOC case study using discrete event simulation and discuss managerial implications of these measures via a set of scenarios. The scenarios explain how these measures – without sharing sensitive financial data – allow members of an SC network to monitor both the effectiveness (TDD) and efficiency (IDD) of SC members and lead them to create win-win solutions following well-known TOC-based planning and control concepts. We conclude this paper by discussing some limitations of the proposed research and provide directions for future theoretical research.     

Adopting an Open Innovation Program with Supply Chain Management in China: A Case Study

This study examines how an open innovation program can be implemented in practice by a foreign company operating in China with due consideration of traditional supply chain management practices. A case study of an open innovation initiative in a renowned global electrical appliance company in China is explored. The study has found that supply chain managers can play an important role in innovation sourcing, provided an open innovation perspective is adopted. In addition, an open innovation framework complemented by an open innovation funnel is presented. The framework provides new practical insights for engineering managers seeking to implement open innovation programs. The study bridges the gap between academic studies and industrial practice regarding the roles of different functional units in an environment of open innovation.     

The impact of the customer order decoupling point on type and level of supply chain integration

Literature suggests that more supply chain (SC) integration increases of SC performance. However, recent research shows that contextual factors affect the effectiveness of SC integration efforts. Specifically, the location of the customer order decoupling point (CODP) might be such a factor, but there is limited empirical evidence. This study explores the impact of the location of the CODP on SC integration. It empirically investigates upstream, internal and downstream SC integration efforts in twelve metal parts producing Dutch companies to offer a comprehensive view of the effects of the location of the CODP on SC integration. Our results show a clear relationship between SC integration and the location of the CODP. Specifically, make-to-order (MTO), assemble-to-order (ATO) and make-to-stock (MTS) companies show relatively high levels in upstream, internal and downstream SC integration, respectively. Moreover, MTO companies mainly share forecast information and engage in joint R&D with their suppliers, ATO companies focus on internal SC integration using information systems and planning, while MTS companies interact with their customers intensively to exchange forecast information. Our study adds to the insight on the application of SC integration in different situations and offers initial evidence for the effects of the location of the CODP on SC integration.     

Product service systems,after-sales service and new product development

After-sales service is a critical element in the successful marketing of many products. Capital goods, for example, manufacturing equipment, require after-sales service such as maintenance and repair in order for customers to get the full value from them. Some manufacturers have started to offer customers an integrated product and service, termed a product-service system in the academic literature. However, in order to deliver such integrated offerings, a different approach to new product development (NPD) is required. This is because the product design influences after-sales service requirements, and so this needs to be considered during NPD. However, researchers have largely ignored the relationship between NPD and service. To address this gap, six in-depth case studies were conducted at leading companies that offer a combined product-service offering, to identify how service requirements are typically evaluated at the design stage. The results show that at companies where after-sales is an important element of the business, service requirements are systematically evaluated during NPD through the involvement of after-sales personnel and the use of field service data to set design goals.     

A hierarchical fuzzy TOPSIS approach to assess improvement areas when implementing green supply chain initiatives

Implementing green supply chain management (GSCM) initiatives can generate more business opportunities for firms. It also requires changes in firms’ operational capabilities and resources that may have an adverse effect on firms’ operations performance. In order to achieve sustainable economic and environmental performance, it is essential for companies to evaluate different green initiatives and assess improvement areas when implementing green initiatives. This study proposes a fuzzy hierarchical TOPSIS approach to support such an assessment. It enables decision makers to better understand the complete evaluation process and provide a more accurate, effective and systematic decision support tool. An illustrative case is presented to help researchers and practitioners understand the importance of developing an appropriate organisation strategy in implementing green practices.     

Livestock value chain in transition: Cultivated (cell-based) meat and the need for breakthrough capabilities

Alternative protein sources such as cell-based meat are potentially associated with improvements in important issues related to intensive industrial livestock production: animal welfare, environmental impact, food safety and the low efficiency of conventional meat production. However, little is known about the potential implications of the new cultivated meat technology for emerging countries. Thus, drawing on the Global Value Chain literature and on the blossoming literature on cell-based meat, we have first discussed how this new chain may be structured. Then, based on the analysis of a set of companies that operate in the fast-developing cultivated meat industry, core enabling capabilities that are required in order to enter the new meat value chain were identified; they encompass technological, business structuring, market positioning and relationship with stakeholder capabilities. It is likely that all listed capabilities are relevant for any country to access the livestock chain in transition. We propose reflections that may contribute to decisions which, in turn, may define aspects of the cultivated meat chain, for the sake of relieving animal suffering and taking care of our home planet, while providing all humans with quality food that meet their nutritional requirements and consumption desires.     

Using eco-efficiency in sustainable supply chain management; a case study of furniture production

In this article, a three-step method, proposing how small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can improve the environmental performance in their supply chain, is presented. The method is based on (1) an assessment of their products, (2) identification of critical processes that should be improved, and (3) identification of actors in the supply chain that should be focussed upon not only based on environmental performance, but also based on the abilities that the end producer has to influence them. This article is exemplified with a case study of furniture production in Norway. The case shows that the potential for improvement of processes under direct control by the end producer is limited. However, the three steps, as a whole, show how an SME with limited resources and supply chain power can identify key actors in the supply chains for further improvements, based on a potential for improvements of environmental performance and the possibilities that the end producer has to impose improvements.