Designing optimal global supply chains at Dow AgroSciences

PurposeSupply chain network design is an important strategic decision that firms make considering both the short‐ and long‐term consequences of the network's performance. The typical design approach implicitly assumes that, once designed, the facilities and the links will always operate as planned. In reality, however, facilities and the links connecting them, fail from time to time due to poor weather, natural or man‐made disasters, or a combination of any other factors. This work aims to propose a design framework that addresses the facility and link failures explicitly by accounting for their impact on a network's performance measures of efficiency and robustness.Design/methodology/approachThe study incorporated a robustness metric for evaluating the resiliency of supply chains in the case of a network disruption. This robustness metric is based on expected losses incurred due to network failures. It defines efficiency and robustness in terms of operational cost and expected disruption cost (EDC), respectively. The EDC is defined in terms of loss of opportunity cost incurred due to not meeting demand on time after a disruption has occurred. The study used a scenario planning approach and formulated a mixed integer linear program model with the objective of maximizing both efficiency and robustness. It also evaluates the trade‐offs between efficiency and robustness.FindingsThe resulting supply chain is much more reliable in the long term since we have shown that a significant amount of robustness can be built into the system without compromising a lot on efficiency.Originality/valueThis work demonstrates a methodology which incorporates such disaster scenarios into the design of a supply chain network. This leads to a more reliable supply chain which would lead to higher profitability and lower disruption rates.

Agriculture, food and global value chains: issues, methods and challenges

When the product family (PF) and the supply chain designs (SCD) are aligned and integrated, original equipment manufacturers (OEM) are more likely to improve their operational performance.In this paper,we propose a novel approach, which demonstrates how both the product and the supply chain can simultaneously be designed based on real-time data. At the heart of the proposed model is the utilisation of a cloud-based management system comprising of three steps. In the first step, a generic bill of materials is modelled to design a set of product families using “AND” and “OR” nodes. In the second step,a cloud-based framework is designed to manage real-time costs viz. echelons. In the third step, a mixed integer linear programming model is then applied, which optimizes the SCD based on real-time costs.We use a metaheuristic method based on Genetic Algorithm (GA) to solve the optimization problem. We further illustrate the model using power transformer numerical example. Then the critical parameters of GA are examined to determine the best settings.We believe that the proposed SCD is an intelligent and expert management system, which can facilitate effective decision-making support by taking into account real-time cost data. This is particularly important when there are uncertain and volatile market conditions.

As labour costs in China increase, labour-intensive industries are migrating to ASEAN countries, attracted by lower labour costs and market potential. This shift not only affects the economies of China and ASEAN but also reshapes the global manufacturing landscape. This paper investigates the correlation and spillover of supply chain risks using production exposure indicators derived from inter-country input-output data and the R-Vine Copula model. We assess the risk spillover of each country within the global supply chain. Our findings indicate that industrial relocation can significantly alter supply chain structures, thereby affecting the concentration and direction of risks. While China's role in the global textile supply chain has diminished, it remains significant, with notable increases in the roles of Vietnam and Thailand. This research reveals the supply chain risks between China and ASEAN in the context of industrial transfer, exploring the sustainable development of production linkages and sustainable economic cooperation among countries.

ABSTRACTToday’s scenario of manufacturing and supply chain is full of uncertainty because of numerous types of disruptions and failures such as fire, storm, machine failure, are a few names. Always supply chain disruptions present disastrous impacts, although probabilities of happening are low. In the recent robust as well as flexible supply chain has captured the focus of researchers in designing a supply chain network with consideration of disruption’s risk. In this work, an ontology-based decision support system is proposed to intensify the supply chain resilience during a disruption. The concept of semantic and ontology is adopted in developing the knowledge base for the entire supply chain network including manufacturing units. Protégé is used for defining the classes and sub-classes along with numerous types of properties and expressed in a rule-based system using semantic web rule language (SWRL). Furthermore, a mixed integer linear programming model with an objective of maximising quantified resilience to fulfil the demand. A hybrid particle swarm optimisation – differential evolution (PSO-DE) is utilised as an optimisation technique for the defined problem. In performing the study, a set of simulated data is formed and then interpreted in the ontology for an optimal selection of recovery activity.

Twenty-first century systems are characterised by rapid changes and constantly evolving dynamics. Therefore, supply chains have become more globalised and complex than ever before. Global supply chains are often accompanied by serious threats and significant additional risks to industries that rely heavily on them. The oil and gas industry encounter significant supply chain risks throughout all stages. The objective of this paper is to provide a holistic complex system governance (CSG) perspective to investigate disruption risks in oil and gas supply chains. As a case study, the piracy problem in Africa is used to demonstrate the efficacy and extensibility of the CSG perspective to a wider array of potential supply chain disruptions. Unlike ready-made solutions or 'off-the-shelf' strategies that may actually undermine the establishment of a resilient global oil and gas supply chain, this paper examines associated risks as a complex system, or a system of systems problem.

The goal of this paper is twofold: to comparatively analyze the social performance of global and local berry supply chains and to explore the ways in which the social dimension is embedded in the overall performance of food supply chains. To achieve this goal, the social performance of five global and local food supply chains in two countries are analyzed: wild blueberry supply chains in Latvia and cultivated raspberry supply chains in Serbia. The study addresses two research questions: (1) What is the social performance of the local and global supply chains? (2) How can references to context help improve understanding of the social dimension and social performance of food supply chains? To answer these questions, two interlinked thematic sets of indicators (attributes) are used—one describing labor relations and the other describing power relations. These lists are then contextualized by examining the micro-stories of the actors involved in these supply chains. An analysis of the chosen attributes reveals that global chains perform better than local chains. However, a context-sensitive analysis from the perspective of embedded markets and communities suggests that the social performance of food chains is highly context-dependent, relational, and affected by actors’ abilities to negotiate values, norms, and the rules embedded within these chains, both global and local. The results illustrate that the empowerment of the chains’ weakest actors can lead to a redefining of the meanings that performance assessments rely on.

Contents: Introduction, James Wang, Daniel Olivier, Theo Notteboom and Brian Slack. Part 1 Conceptualization of Port-Cities and Global Supply Chains: Supply chain and supply chain management: appropriate concepts for maritime studies, Valentina Carbone and Elisabeth Gouvernal Global supply chain integration and competitiveness of port terminals, Photis M. Panayides The terminalisation of seaports, Brian Slack Re-assessing port-hinterland relationships in the context of global supply chains, Theo Notteboom and Jean-Paul Rodrigue. Part 2 Shipping Networks and Port Development: The development of global container transhipment terminals, Alfred J. Baird Mediterranean ports in the global network: how to make the hub and spoke paradigm sustainable?, Enrico Musso and Francesco Parola Northern European range: shipping line concentration and port hierarchy, Antoine Fremont and Martin Soppe Factors influencing the landward movement of containers: the cases of Halifax and Vancouver, Robert J. McCalla. Part 3 Inserting Port-Cities into Global Supply Chains: Globalization and the port-urban interface: conflicts and opportunities, Yehuda Hayuth A metageography of port-city relationships, Cesar Ducruet Chinese port-cities in the global supply chains, James Wang and Daniel Olivier The economic performance of seaport regions, Peter W. De Langen. Part 4 Corporate Perspectives on the Insertion of Ports in Global Supply Chains: The success of Asian container port operators: the role of information technology, Daniel Olivier and Francesco Parola Which link in which chain? Inserting Durban into global automotive supply chains, Peter V. Hall and Glen Robbins Sustainable development and corporate strategies of the maritime industry, Claude Comtois and Brian Slack References Index.

After some decades of relative stability, admittedly with some turbulent events such as the 2008–10 global financial crisis, many operations and supply chains had reached a relatively mature state of stability in late 2019. The current pandemic has placed a lot of stress on many systems and many people, and seems to be exacerbating the world’s focus on many other challenges that were simmering or growing. These provide in aggregate a new set of challenges for the whole world of work and its economies, and within that for the design of operations and supply chains. Going forward, and ultimately with the pandemic behind us, economic conditions will be changed for a long time, and hence the context of trade, production and distribution, and at a micro-level, the nature of work will have new challenges to overcome and with that, new opportunities. As incoming editors a year ago, our 2019 editorial described 14 topic areas deserving of research and professional practical attention in operations and supply chain management (O/SCM), that are still important and deserving of scholarly and practical work (Samson and Kalchschmidt, 2019). While the topics such as supply chain risk, sustainability and new technology have remained relevant, the context of our world, our organisations, and the way we work and consume, within which O/SCM operates, have changed markedly in a short time. Many new challenges have emerged or been sharpened and refocussed. Certainly, this brings new research problems. Many of the new conditions that O/SCM work within are either directly or indirectly related to the global pandemic that has swept across the planet. We encourage researchers to study and submit papers to Operations Management Research that are of course of high quality in every way and focussed on these contemporary issues. We have initiated special issues and also welcome such papers and studies for our regular stream. We are also of course seeing a healthy stream of more traditional articles, and we continue to welcome these.

Today’s supply chains (SC) are immersed in extremely dynamic environments, and supply chain management (SCM) has to deal with a multitude of risks. The domain of supply chain risk management (SCRM) has emerged, providing approaches on how to cope with risks in SC. However, due to increased complexity, volatility, and uncertainty, the number of risks in global SC has increased significantly. Harnessing the power of predictive analytics (PA), implemented in intelligent decision support systems (IDSS), offers huge potential in SCRM. However, research at the intersection of the domains of SCRM, PA, and IDSS is still in its infancy, and several research gaps have yet to be addressed. The paper elaborates on these research gaps by means of a systematic literature review. The results include a set of seven research questions and proposed research directions for future studies. Future research is presented with a plethora of starting points, which originate from the business perspective (i.e., the SCRM domain), the data-driven (i.e., the PA domain) as well as an IT-system perspective (i.e., the IDSS domain).KeywordsSupply chain managementPredictive analyticsSupply chain risk managementDecision support

Chapter 6 introduces concepts of global business process, business process design, business process reengineering, and business process management, to present a process-based view of global operation strategy and to introduce the primary processes of global operation strategy. First, we discuss global supply chain strategy, including its concepts, global sourcing strategy, global internal supply chain strategy, global distribution strategy, global supply chain coordination, global supply chain strategic alliances, and global sustainable supply chain strategy. Second, we introduce concepts of global revenue management strategy, present its globally evolving process, and discuss strategies for global revenue management. Third, we discuss global technology strategy, including its concepts, global product development strategy, R&D internationalization modes, global R&D coordination and communication, global R&D sourcing strategy, and technology strategies for global sustainable operations. Finally, we discuss global risk management strategy, including its concepts, basic operational strategies, basic approaches and the operational risk management framework. In this chapter, we use case examples including Etam Distribution Center, Global Supply Chain of H&M, SkyTeam Alliance, Microsoft Research Worldwide, Mattel’s Global Risks and Supply Chains, and a case Tiffany to illustrate process-based fundamentals.KeywordsSupply ChainBusiness Process ManagementGlobal Supply ChainRevenue ManagementBullwhip EffectThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Climate change is forcing governments and businesses to explore mitigation strategies to avoid future catastrophe. There is an urgent need to manage climate change risks in global supply chains. Following a systematic literature review and text mining approach, 90 interdisciplinary articles between the years 2005 and 2018 were studied. Thematic and descriptive analysis identifies sources, consequences and control mechanisms for the climate change risks. It is found that climate change driven by extreme weather conditions significantly impacts food production, natural resources and transportation worldwide. This direct impact on food, mining and logistics sectors cascades into other interlinked global supply chain network. Climate change and supply chains are found to be mutually influencing each other through natural disasters and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions respectively. A systems theory driven, novel supply chain risk management framework for managing climate change risks is proposed. The study contributes to supply chain risk management literature by capturing the nexus between climate change and supply chain management.

Amidst the renewed quest for supply chain resiliency, finance outgrows its traditional role in B2B; instead, finance position itself to become a more integrated partner in supply chain management activities. Areas such as global trade management and supply chain risk management are fluid areas for finance to flourish, coupled with increasing demands for finance to take a more active role in supply chain management. The global supply chain has experienced several disruptions, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, extreme climate change-induced events, natural disasters, conflict, financial crises, recessions, shortages of raw materials for manufacturing, and macroeconomic imbalances; however, futuristic disruptions are already projected by several stakeholders in the logistics and transport sector. Hence, companies must concentrate on building their resilience to all manner of supply chain disruptions. The initial motive of firm management to increase leverage and engage in financial goods is diminished when the economic dilemma of supply chain value is resolved; by so doing, the internal financial situations could facilitate the advancement of enterprise value. Keywords: supply chain, financial service innovations, distribution dimension, COVID-19 DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/15-7-01 Publication date: April 30 th 2023

Optimal planning of municipal solid waste management systems in an integrated supply chain network

Forecasting disruptions in global food value chains to tackle food insecurity: The role of AI and big data analytics – A bibliometric and scientometric analysis