Emergency Supply Chain Research Articles

How is supply chain 4.0 tackling the supply chain challenges in the retail sector?

Purpose – Due to the competitive nature of the market, the last couple of decades have witnessed several retailers struggle to meet up with their supply chain responsibilities. But with the increasing advancement of technologies, a breakthrough has emanated through the emergence of Supply Chain 4.0. This involves the adoption of the Internet of Things, the use of big data, advanced analytics and the application of advanced robotics in supply chain management. This paper provides an overview of how digital supply chain 4.0 can be used to tackle the traditional supply chain management challenges in the retail sector. Design/methodology/approach – The approach adopts the form of a literature review on the core concepts of supply chain management, its challenges and supply chain 4.0. Findings – To tackle the challenges of the supply chain, retailers are encouraged to focus on shifting from the traditional supply chain approach to a more digital-based approach of Supply Chain 4.0. Research limitations – The scope of this paper is restricted to a cross-section of the literature related to this topic. Therefore, it does not comprehensively cover the literature, but a selection of some related works. Originality/value – This study reviews a sample of the existing and latest literature in the area of supply chain management. This presents a meaningful basis for practical guidance for the management of the retailing companies.

CADEIAS DE SUPRIMENTOS REGIONAIS PARA A PRODUÇÃO DE MÁSCARAS PROTETORAS PARA ENFRENTAMENTO NO MUNDO PÓS-COVID

This paper aims to develop a short supply chain for the local production of protective masks for the population in different regions of Brazil, in view of the scarcity of resources on the market in pandemic contexts. Regarding the methodological procedures, the research was classified as applied in nature, with a qualitative approach and as for the exploratory objective because it plans at this time of the pandemic, of COVID-19 to present an emergency supply chain that has not yet been properly mapped. Regarding the data, secondary data related to suppliers in the supply chain and potential manufacturers of masks were used in the Central Business Register of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The information on the productive arrangements in the clothing sector was obtained through a search on the Google search site. As a result, this paper identified the existence of potential complete supply chains in the Southeast and South regions, as well as pointed out the need to develop some links in the chain in other regions of the country, in order to guarantee supply in pandemic periods. In the post pandemic period, it is necessary to use policies to stimulate the development of suppliers of the masks supply chain, especially in the North, Northeast and Midwest regions of Brazil in order to enable the prompt production of articles by the installed capacity of the region.

Emerging supply chain of utilising electrical vehicle retired batteries in distributed energy systems

Increasing electric vehicles (EV) penetration leads to significant challenges in EV battery disposal. Reusing retired batteries in distributed energy systems (DES) offers resource-circular solutions. We propose an optimisation framework to model the emerging supply chains and design strategies for reusing the retired EV batteries in DES. Coupling a supply chain profit-allocation model with a DES design optimisation model, the framework maximises the whole chain profit and enables fair profit distribution between three interactive sectors, i.e., EV, DES, dismantling and recycle (D&R) sectors. Our research highlights the system implications of retired batteries on DES design and new modelling insights into incentive policy effectiveness. Our case study suggests significant potential value chain profits (2.65 million US$) achieved by deploying 10.7 MWh of retired batteries in the DES application with optimal retired battery price of 138 US$/kWh. The revenue support on D&R sector is suggested as a promising incentive scheme than tariff support.

Supply chain sustainability: learning from the COVID-19 pandemic

PurposeThis paper, a pathway, aims to provide research guidance for investigating sustainability in supply chains in a post-COVID-19 environment.Design/methodology/approachPublished literature, personal research experience, insights from virtual open forums and practitioner interviews inform this study.FindingsCOVID-19 pandemic events and responses are unprecedented to modern operations and supply chains. Scholars and practitioners seek to make sense of how this event will make us revisit basic scholarly notions and ontology. Sustainability implications exist. Short-term environmental sustainability gains occur, while long-term effects are still uncertain and require research. Sustainability and resilience are complements and jointly require investigation.Research limitations/implicationsThe COVID-19 crisis is emerging and evolving. It is not clear whether short-term changes and responses will result in a new “normal.” Adjustment to current theories or new theoretical developments may be necessary. This pathway article only starts the conservation – many additional sustainability issues do arise and cannot be covered in one essay.Practical implicationsOrganizations have faced a major shock during this crisis. Environmental sustainability practices can help organizations manage in this and future competitive contexts.Social implicationsBroad economic, operational, social and ecological-environmental sustainability implications are included – although the focus is on environmental sustainability. Emergent organizational, consumer, policy and supply chain behaviors are identified.Originality/valueThe authors take an operations and supply chain environmental sustainability perspective to COVID-19 pandemic implications; with sustainable representing the triple bottom-line dimensions of environmental, social and economic sustainability; with a special focus on environmental sustainability. Substantial open questions for investigation are identified. This paper sets the stage for research requiring rethinking of some previous tenets and ontologies.

Contract coordination of emergency supply chain with government participation considering risk aversion of participants

For governments and nonprofit organizations such as the Red Cross, charity federation, through the contract form emergency relief materials reserve not for profit, but to cope with the future the possibility of natural disasters and public health events, the occurrence of natural disasters and public health events has great uncertainty, which makes the demand for emergency relief supplies have great randomness. On the basis of predecessors’ research, according to the use of options in the theory of supply chain coordination, to build the mathematical model based on option contract, research shows that option contracts can be achieved under the conditional value at risk of emergency relief supply chain coordination, in order to improve the effectiveness of emergency relief supply chain, with the increase of Co option purchase price, the government will increase by option order quantity q**, Q** way to reduce the initial order quantity q reduce material procurement cost; When the option purchase price Co is fixed, the supplier’s risk aversion increases with the decrease of the risk preference coefficient. In this case, the government, as the purchaser, needs to provide a higher option strike price Ce to encourage the supplier to produce according to the optimal output of the supply chain system.

Resilience Role of Distribution Centers amid COVID-19 Crisis in Tier-A Cities of India: A Green Field Analysis Experiment

Supply chain is the most critical lifeline of all business/non-business operations and processes in today’s world. The outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic has a serious impact on organizations and society at large. Due to this pandemic spread, food supply chains are facing two unique unraveling emerging supply chain challenges: (a) supply shocks and (b) demand shocks. Stocking of consumer staples under such uncertain situations gives rise to uncertain peak demands of staple food, and hence striking bullwhip effect. The present study focuses on the staple food distribution among tier-A cities of India, namely Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Ahmedabad. Using the software anyLogistix PLE edition, greenfield analysis was conducted to find the number of distribution centers required by these cities for food distribution and to reduce the transportation cost between the cities. Two key insights emerge from the analysis: (a) we need six potential areas to locate distribution centers (DCs)/ regional sites instead of a single DC; (b) transportation cost is reduced from US$21,327 to US$2,375. The major observation from the Green Field Analysis (GFA) reveals there is a need to reinforce and repair the operational efficiencies of DCs so as to reach the needy end consumers.

Principles of supply chain management in the time of crisis.

Hospitals face catastrophic financial challenges in light of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Acute shortages in materials such as masks, ventilators, intensive care unit capacity, and personal protective equipment (PPE) are a significant concern. The future success of supply chain management involves increasing the transparency of where our raw materials are sourced, diversifying of our product resources, and improving our technology that is able to predict potential shortages. It is also important to develop a proactive budgeting strategy to meet supply demands through early designation of dependable roles to support organizations and through the education of healthcare staff. In this paper, we discuss supply chain management, governance and financing, emergency protocols, including emergency procurement and supply chain, supply chain gaps and how to address them, and the importance of communication in the times of crisis.

Emergence and Dynamics of Short Food Supply Chains

Through the consideration of a stochastic matching model dependent on a probability function built from the Heron’s formula, we analyze the emergence and the dynamics of short agrifood sale circuits in form of time-evolving random hypergraphs. These marketing circuits, which are used as a supportive policy for promoting local food consumption, typify short distribution channels. Although bipartite matching can be easily derived from the framework, we move our focus on the matching of triplets of players representing buyers, retailers and sellers. Their conditional pairings with respect to standard and social preferences are both taken into consideration. Our results show that the emergence of short food supply chains is triggered by a three-dimensional stochastic matching mechanism. Their time evolution is found to be governed by both stable and unstable dynamics, the latter being subject to bounded antiperiodic oscillations. Via the use of a Poisson process, we then redirect our interest toward spatial randomness and the number of circuits attainable in a defined territory. The model unveils a restricted spread of short circuits over the entire territory, which, in expectation, can only be a partial substitute for long supply chains. The outcomes show consistency with the agribusiness patterns currently observable in France.

An investigation into design and performance of supply chains for public procurement projects

This study provides new insight into current and emerging supply chain approaches and related power relations deriving from public procurement processes within Local Authorities (LAs). Drawing on a mixed-method empirical research (involving data from LAs across the Yorkshire and Humber region of the United Kingdom) this research examines stakeholder pressures, paying particular attention to principal-agent and dependency relationships between public sector and private companies in public procurement projects. Resource Dependency Theory is used as the theoretical framework to support the study. The paper presents and critically evaluates across a set of dimensions, four models of supply chain archetypes deriving from the implementation public procurement projects. These archetypes identify key stakeholders and determine power relations between main contractors, sub-contractors, government agencies and LAs for the delivery of public sector projects. The research carried out in this paper can inform practice, policy and research in aiding public organizations such as LAs in the design of projects before the procurement stage. Also, the research provides useful insight on how the procurement process can serve as a mechanism for LAs to manage activities of agents in order to achieve a range of objectives.

Trends in the development of transportation education

The rapid development of the transport industry requires the operation of technically complex systems and high-tech equipment. This is typical for all types of transport. The publications of a number of experts are considered, according to which the industry transport universities of the Russian Federation are assigned a leading role in the innovative development of transport. The features of industry transport education, foreign models of staffing in the transport industry are analyzed. The author’s map of the distribution of major transport universities in the world and universities that have transport faculties is presented. Analysis of expert opinions, trends in the field of vocational education and the characteristics of industry transport education, made it possible to identify trends in the development of transport education: blurring the boundaries between transport educational programs (EP); increasing the role of additional EP in the field of transport; increased demand for individual EP, implemented using the means of electronic information educational systems; development of forms of cooperation and collaboration of universities implementing programs in the field of transport; the emergence of new professions in the field of transport; demand for new competencies needed to solve non-routine analytical and non-routine interpersonal tasks. The key factor in the influence of education on technological development and economic growth is the quality of education. In this regard, the content of the EP in the field of transport becomes relevant. In the EP in the field of transport, it is necessary to take into account the following trends and technologies: acceleration of digitalization; development of virtual and augmented reality; automation of the entire life cycle; new materials; the emergence of new transport systems and supply chains; development of low-carbon and carbon-free energy systems.

A new framework for analyzing technological change

Technological evolution is widely thought to be the primary process that brings about economic growth. It is one of the main targets of evolutionary economics, but how technological change induces economic growth has remained unexplained. Based on the new theory of value, this paper explains how technological change leads to long-run improvement in real wage rates and income per capita. Section 2 gives a brief overview of the new theory and presents two theorems (minimal price and the convergence theorem) that afford the basis of analyses in Sections 4 and 5. Before these, Section 3 compares two price systems, traditional and new, and compares efficiency from two points of view. Traditionally economics with equilibrium has been concerned with those conditions that provide allocative efficiency. However, technological evolution comprises a series of half-blind selections of ‘better’ production techniques and exhibits another kind of efficiency that can be named dynamic efficiency. The latter is more important than the former. Allocative efficiency is self-destructive, while dynamic efficiency is cumulative in its effects. Section 4 shows how technological change works cumulatively and how it leads to real wage increases and income per capita. Section 5 shows that the new theory can explain the emergence and growth of global value supply chains as a part of technology choice arising through international trade. This paper is mainly focused on supply-side theory, while problems concerning the demand side are considered in Section 6. Section 7 concludes.

Energy emergency supply chain collaboration optimization with group consensus through reinforcement learning considering non-cooperative behaviours

As a response to emergency events occurred frequently around the world, energy emergency supply chain collaboration has becomes a business imperative with multiple energy trading organizations to respond it by group consensus. However, managing agile energy emergency supply chain collaboration, with the minimum energy recovery time regarding energy supply shortage driven by urgent events such as earthquake, is confronted with a difficult task: govern non-cooperative behaviours of energy emergency supply chain collaboration that identifies the irrational causes underlying deviations from neoclassical utility-maximizing economic decisions. In this paper, develop a smart model for energy emergency supply chain collaboration that the work bridges the divide between emergency supply chain collaboration optimization with group consensus and reinforcement learning. It sets up collaboration consensus with scenarios learning algorithm driven by the satisfaction-level combination of generalising past experience and future scenarios to new local energy supply shortage emergency situations to govern non-cooperative irrational behaviours, resulting in the response process with the minimum energy recovery time, cost and CO2 emissions. Simulations results show that proposed model has a significantly lower running time by 40%, and reduces minimisation of cost for energy restoration by 7% and minimisation of CO2 emissions by 10.8% on average.

Sustainable supply chain for disaster management: structural dynamics and disruptive risks

This study explores the operational characteristics of supply chain operations during disaster scenarios within Bangladesh and the profound impact of disruption risks due to poor operational effectiveness and structural dynamics within the supply chain network. Via the analysis of representative case studies and interviews with over 500 stakeholders, we identify and analyse the many structural and administrative complexities and subsequent disruption risks surrounding the utilisation of traditional supply chain infrastructures for emergency disaster scenarios. The findings illustrate the severe impact of poor demand estimation, inadequate selection of supply items, bureaucratic and extended chain of administration, poor central coordination among the participating organizations, absence of interoperability, poor infrastructure, and lack of information sharing. We propose a new emergency supply chain infrastructure to mitigate these threats offering contribution to the literature as well as support to disaster relief efforts within Bangladesh.

All for one and one for all: Why a pandemic preparedness league of nations?

In light of today's COVID-19 crisis, it is argued that new ways to collaborate among all nations for pandemic preparedness may be the next big thing. A workable solution for pandemic preparedness requires leaders of all nations to be on the same page (all for one), aiming at a swift turnaround of the crisis in tandem that can only benefit everyone on a global scale (one for all). After all, a public health crisis of this magnitude involves all humankind, demanding not only the most sensible and intelligent adoption of progressive policies and innovative technology, but an effective balancing of emergency supply chain management (SCM) reserve of personal protective equipment (PPE), professional workers and/or other urgently needed resources (e.g., ICU beds) to save lives. Above all, accurate sharing of information and massive-scale testings vis-à-vis targeted isolations must be sustained. Notably, such a framework may not just be limited to infuenza. Here, the authors elaborate on several key strategies and aim to provide grounds for scientific innovations and clearer policy thinking across international boundaries to combat a global public health pandemic via a league of nations conceived as IPPO: Intercontinental Pandemic Preparedness Organization.

South Asia’s Economic Integration with East Asia: An Exploratory Analysis with a Focus on India

Economic integration of South Asia and East Asia has been growing steadily since the 1990s, fuelled by domestic reforms and the emergence of regional supply chains. Within South Asia, India emerged as the largest trading partner and investment destination for East Asian economies. With its new Act East Policy, India has been proactively looking at free trade agreements with Association of Southeast Asian Nation and East Asia, which has brought benefits to South Asia in terms of improved trade and increased investment. This paper assesses the experience of the economic integration of South Asia and East Asia by addressing questions such as the extent of trade integration achieved and impediments to deepening integration. It found that trade and investment linkages are growing as well as casually related. However, attaining the full potential of economic integration is constrained by the insufficient depth in the use of existing trade agreements, barriers to service trade, and poor infrastructure connectivity. Expansion of Regional Comprehensive Economic Cooperation would significantly enhance economic integration of South Asia, particularly India, and East Asia.

Emergency supply chain scheduling problem with multiple resources in disaster relief operations

In emergency logistics, it is important to allocate available assets to operations effectively due to the resource scarcity. This paper considers a supply chain network which includes local and global suppliers of medical relief items, regional and central distribution centers, and many customer demand points. Either pre-positioned resources at distribution centers or new assembly operations at them can fulfill resources demands. Moreover, a capacitated multi-stage operations scheduling problem is presented, in which renewable (medical teams) as well as non-renewable resources (standard or customized medical kits) are required in an emergency supply chain. In addition, a new mixed-integer programming model is presented and solved for small-sized problems. Further, for solving large-sized problems, a particle swarm optimization algorithm is developed. Finally, the performance of the proposed solution method is evaluated, and some sensitivity analyses are conducted on the more important parameters.

Quantitative modeling in disaster management: A literature review

The number, magnitude, complexity, and impact of natural disasters have been steadily increasing in various parts of the world. When preparing for, responding to, and recovering from a disaster, multiple organizations make decisions and take actions considering the needs, available resources, and priorities of the affected communities, emergency supply chains, and infrastructures. Most of the prior research focuses on decision-making for independent systems (e.g., single critical infrastructure networks or distinct relief resources). An emerging research area extends the focus to interdependent systems (i.e., multiple dependent networks or resources). In this article, we survey the literature on modeling approaches for disaster management problems on independent systems, discuss some recent work on problems involving demand, resource, and/or network interdependencies, and offer future research directions to add to this growing research area.

Supply chain management and Industry 4.0: conducting research in the digital age

Purpose – Industry 4.0 is bringing fundamental changes to how business operates, including how the supply chains are managed. The purpose of this paper is to compile a set of recent articles focusing on emerging topics on supply chain management (SCM) in the digital age and to highlight a future research agenda for supply chain digitalization. Design/methodology/approach – The accepted articles in the Special Issue used a variety of methodologies to answer research questions related to SCM in the digital age. Findings – The findings in the accepted articles provides interesting perspectives at different levels – from a holistic supply chain view to specific aspects of digital supply chains. These findings are valuable and applicable in various research contexts. Along with the accompanying editorial, these articles offer directions for a future research on studying the pressing issues in SCM. Research limitations/implications – All of the four articles have significant implications to researchers who intend to understand and study emerging supply chain phenomenon related to the digital transformation with a proactive approach. Practical implications – From a practical standpoint, these articles offer helpful thoughts and ideas about digital supply chain transformation. Specifically, effective data analytics is a core factor that will reshape future supply chains. Originality/value – Each of the articles takes a different approach to address an important aspect of digital supply chain management research and provides unique perspectives.

Supply chain multi-state risk assessment using universal generating function

This paper proposes a new approach to assess the supply risk beyond the classical binary assumption of either delivering the whole quantity or not. Given today’s stochastic nature of supply and the dynamic nature of demand, the different supply activities along with the chain exhibit a multi-state behaviour increasing the complexity of their risk assessment. The new approach utilizes the universal generating function (UGF) to model the different suppliers’ echelons with their various supply risk levels along all the stages of the supply chain as a multi-state risk system. The developed model was successfully implemented to assess the supply risk in a multi-state strawberry supply chain and outperformed classical approaches. Results from the case study and the validation analysis illustrated the ability of the new approach to capture the various supply levels with their associated risks leading to more informative risk assessment process. Furthermore, the developed model improved the visibility for the purchasing managers downstream in terms of the different trade-offs between supply levels and their risks as well as some financial thresholds. The new multi-state approach contributes to the emerging supply chain risk assessment trend by offering a more realistic modelling method to capture the risk of all available supply levels along the delivery chain.

Research on Response Elastic Simulation and Optimization of Natural Disaster Emergency Supply Chain

China has a vast territory and a large population density. The frequent occurrence of natural disasters has caused enormous losses to the lives and property of our people. With the expansion of the connotation of rescue organizations, a cooperative relationship between rescue organizations and rescue organizations and commercial organizations to improve rescue efficiency and minimize losses caused by natural disasters has become a research in emergency supply chain research. New perspective. Through the construction of the natural disaster emergency supply chain elastic simulation model, the paper optimizes and analyzes the two strategies of fortification inventory and emergency procurement to obtain the optimal solution and proposes the elastic optimization strategy. With the dynamics of simulation, the simulation model of natural disaster emergency supply chain is established, and the elasticity is optimized as the optimization goal.