No abstract

No abstract

Purpose The COVID-19 outbreak has imposed extensive shocks embracing all stages of the food supply chain (FSC). Although the magnitude is still unfolding, the FSC responds with remarkable speed, to mitigate the disruptive consequences and sustain operations. This paper aims to investigate how operationalising supply chain agility (SCA) practices has occurred amid the COVID-19 crisis and expectations for how those practices could transform the supply chain in the post-COVID-19 era. Design/methodology/approach Following an exploratory case-based design, this paper examines the various agile responses that three supply chains (meat, fresh vegetables and bread) adopted and elaborate using the dynamic capability (DC) theoretical lens. Findings First, the findings demonstrate how, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, each affected case pursued various agile responses through sensing and seizing capabilities. Sensing includes identifying and assessing the relevant opportunities and threats associated with the specific supply chain context. Seizing involves acquiring, combining and modifying the tangible and intangible resources at the firm and supply chain levels. Second, supply chain transformation is likely if firms and their supply chain develop the sustaining capability to ensure that the desirable changes outlast the crisis. Practical implications This study provides an actionable guide for practitioners to develop agile responses to systemic changes in times of crisis and to sustain favourable changes so as to enable their outlasting of the crisis. Originality/value This study provides a novel and unique perspective on the role of SCA in crisis – in this case, the pandemic. This paper synthesises the empirical stories of the agile responses in the FSC and elaborates on the DC framework, to identify theoretical and practical implications. This paper establishes the sustaining capability as the missing DC capability for enabling transformation in the post-COVID-19 era.

No abstract

No abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This paper aims at exploring the challenges of introducing a model integrating the Cost of Quality (COQ) into the modeling of a supply chain network. Design/methodology/approach -This paper introduces a comprehensive supply chain model that minimizes a series of costs, in which COQ is integrated. Findings -The scenario of incorporating COQ in supply chain network design will ensure the lowest overall cost, because it reduces the probability of defects and hence the probability of additional cost which might be due to corrective action. Practical implications -With many industries today on the quest of improving their quality systems, finding ways to reduce nonconformities and failure of products is crucial. In industries such as the aerospace industry, the variable production cost is high; hence producing extra parts to compensate for defectives would be a costly option. Originality/value -While COQ is a very good indicator of how much poor quality is costing a company, no work has been published in regard to integrating COQ into supply chain modeling.

A new connectivity index for container portsJ o h n J B a r t h o l d i I I I a , P i s i t J a r u m a n e e r o j b a n d A m a r R a m u d h i n A b s t r a c t We propose a new index, the Container Port Connectivity Index, to measure the trade connectivity of ports within the network of container shipping. This index is based on both economics and network topology, and a distinctive feature is that the strength of a port is based on its position within the global structure of the shipping network, and not just on local information such as the number of TEUs handled, or direct links to other ports. Furthermore, the index produces separate scores for inbound and outbound container movements and in so doing it supports more detailed analyses. We explore the usefulness of the index by analyzing the global network of scheduled mainline container-shipping services as it existed in September 2011.Keywords: container port; shipping network; connectivityThe online version of this article is available Open Access M e a s u r i n g t h e C o n n e c t i v i t y o f C o n t a i n e r P o r t sWhat makes a container port important? From an operational point of view, it is connectivity: Are there convenient services to and from other important ports? Several measures borrowed from graph theory have been applied to measure connectivity, but these are typically based only weakly on economics.We suggest a new measure of importance with which to compare container ports, which we call the Container Port Connectivity Index (CPCI).

The growing plastic waste problem has been highlighted by nature programmes like the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) War on Plastic series with the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2016 report estimating that by 2050, there could be more plastic than fish in the world's oceans. This has prompted the call for a shift from the linear model of tackling the plastic waste issue to that of a Circular Economy model with increasing demand for recycled resin to be incorporated into the plastic production process alongside virgin resin. However, recycled content are often associated with problems like lack of stability between various combinations of virgin/recycle polymers, which may lead to variations in temperature and inconsistency in the ease of flow attributable to the different temperature and pressure regimes under which virgin raw material and recycled feedstock melt and cool. In this paper, our main contribution is a proposed framework for integrating an enhanced AI/DB interface for analysing historical and real time information/data into a joint DSC-TGA system that allows for simultaneous quality control checks and thermal stability tests on different virgin-recycled resin mixing ratios. The database comes equipped with proven estimation methods, testing and statistical analysis results of different resin specimens to serve as a reference point for production engineers in arriving at desired check and test conditions. The information will be particularly useful to plastic product manufacturers when making decisions regarding the right virgin-recycled mix ratio conditions when using different batches of recycled resin or when they switch a supplier.