Probably most companies source at least some parts for their products from global sources. This could be the steel from Australia, electronics from Taiwan or cloth from India. The reasons for international sourcing usually include cost and quality, which might be superior compared to local sources.
On the other hand longer shipment ways and less direct access and control may also increase the risks of quality failures, delays or even disruptions.
Today I introduce you to the process of measuring agility in a supply chain. Agility is a major concept in the research of the last 10 years or so. I already have written some articles on this topic:
Yet another paper on risk mitigation strategies. This time: How to reduce risks by improving confidence. You can find the complete paper of today in the web.
Setting up the right partnerships is hard to do. There are multiple levels to the decision with which companies to setup formal relations and how deep this relationship should be? Christopher and Jüttner (2000) develop a framework for managing partnerships. The full paper can be found here.
Submitted by Daniel Dumke on Wed, 2011-02-23 10:35
Paper
Supply Chain Risk Management: Outlining an Agenda for Future Research
Year:
2003
I just stumbled upon one of the articles I already read about a year ago, shortly after I started my research. Beside indication of a future research agenda (see as well here), Jüttner et al. (2003) also explain some fundamental concepts of supply chain risk management.
Companies offer a smaller or larger range of products serving different markets, depending on their history and primarily the respective business model.
From a supply chain management point of view this poses the question if it is ok just to use the same supply chain strategy for all those products.
Experts from research and business alike argue that within the last decades consumers have grown to be a more demanding factor for supply chain management. At the same time manufacturing and supply chain strategies adapted to this development (from lean to agile, see Christopher and Towill, 2000).
Is there consensus about the role of product design as the leading function in the supply chain? Not yet! This article introduces the topic of integrating decisions in product and supply chain design and gives a short glimpse on the “how to implement” part.
I had this article marked for some time now and I finally got to read it. It describes the connection between Shareholder Value and the concept of Value Based Management (VBM) and Supply Chain Strategy.
