Volume 4 (2021-22)

Each volume of Journal of Supply Chain Management, Logistics & Procurement consists of four 100-page issues published in both print and online.

Volume 4 Number 4

Editorial
Simon Beckett, Publisher
Big Data analytics to alleviate risks in the supply chain
Natarajan Arjun, Vice President, Mattel Toys

Today, most supply chains are intricately connected both across enterprises and also across geographical locations. Therefore, any disruption at any point in the supply chain could potentially disrupt the entire chain. There are some factors that are within the control of the enterprise, and others that are external to the enterprise. This paper looks at various types of mitigation actions to alleviate supply chain disruption, including Big Data analytics.
Keywords: supply chain risk management strategies, resilience, machine learning, Big Data advanced analytics, descriptive analytics, diagnostic analytics, predictive analysis, prescriptive analysis
Convergence of measurement systems analysis and artificial intelligence in the supply chain
Jerry Hamilton, Procurement Engineer and Christopher L. Colaw, Fellow, Quality & Mission Success, Lockheed Martin

Just as products and services have inherent variation in them, measurement systems have variation in them as well. The key is to characterise how much variation they have, and to baseline this prior to the start of large-scale production runs. There exist industry standards by which to compare, and the smaller the amount of measurement variation possible is better. Excessive measurement variation in the supply chain can result in unfavourable business impacts including ‘hidden factory’ effects. This paper will address relevant considerations for how to characterise measurement variation in the supply chain through a Gage repeatability and reproducibility (R&R) process, and the application of Industry 4.0, Quality 4.0, data sciences, Big Data and artificial intelligence (AI) and their implications within the realm of measurement systems analysis.
Keywords: measurement, system, analysis, gage, variation, artificial intelligence, Industry 4.0, Quality 4.0, hidden factory
De-risking procurement by digitalising spend monitoring
Shouvik Banerjee, Product Owner, ignio BizOps, Digitate

Managing procurement risk through a conventional adoption of the three lines of defence model does not work effectively. This is primarily because digitalisation is restricted to the first line only through spend management systems, while the second and third lines rely on people armed with checklists undertaking periodic sample-based audits. This allows sub-optimal purchases, non-compliance, process abuse and fraud to slip through undetected and cause irreversible damage. A novel way forward would be to digitalise spend monitoring and create a second line of defence against such issues. Digitalising spend monitoring would entail several actions for it to make a significant dent in reducing procurement risk. The paper discusses how, first, an enterprise needs to study its past behaviour and identify what is abnormal and worth monitoring. Second, the enterprise needs to build an ability to correlate information from both within and outside its boundary so as to take the right decisions. Third, the enterprise needs to digitise a catalogue of controls that can be configured to continuously monitor and flag live transactions based on past and current observations. Fourth, the enterprise needs to build an ability to get actionable recommendations on anomalous transactions and intercept them immediately. Finally, the enterprise needs to ensure that this spend monitoring setup is continuously learning from its users’ actions and tuning itself to improve its accuracy. Meeting all the above criteria will ensure that such a system has a good signal-to-noise ratio and appeals to several stakeholders simultaneously within an enterprise. Global business service (GBS) owners and operations managers could use it to screen transactions at various approval tollgates in the procure-to-pay process and reduce the risk of waste, non-compliance and process abuse. Sourcing directors and category managers could use it to tune sourcing strategies and monitor their effectiveness to reduce supplier and category risk. Risk and compliance officers could use it to continuously audit 100 per cent of transactions and reduce the risk of non-compliance or fraud.
Keywords: risk management, spend monitoring, spend analytics, continuous monitoring, machine learning, predictive analytics, intelligent automation
The importance of S&OP, collaboration and process discipline in a complex business environment: A case study from the canned seafood industry
Sven Massen, Director Operations, Thai Union Europe

Supply chains are usually faced with a considerable number of external and internal drivers of complexity. They can originate from diverse sources such as a big product variety to produce, difficulties in raw material sourcing, a vertically disintegrated production network, ever-changing customer needs, or strong regulatory requirements. Those drivers typically correlate to each other and are mutually dependent. For example, a widespread production network makes raw material sourcing a complex task. In reverse, varying raw material availability across regions determines the design of a production network that is then not necessarily trimmed on leanness. Some industry supply chains are more complex than others, meaning they are exposed to more complexity drivers than supply chains in other industries. Thai Union Europe (TUE) predominantly operates in the canned seafood industry, and the related supply chain with its multitude of complexity drivers can be considered very complex. The way TUE manages sales and operations planning (S&OP) in this environment is key to its market success. The company’s execution of S&OP is inevitably linked to its corporate culture of collaboration and process discipline. Focus is not only on an S&OP programme with best practice processes but also on achieving the necessary cultural change. The way TUE plans and manages its complex supply chain is the subject of this case study.
Keywords: sales and operations planning (S&OP), process discipline, corporate culture, collaboration, complexity management, food processing industry
The digital transformation of logistics
Lance Healy, Founder, Epiphyte Solutions

Digital transformation of logistics has emerged into the lexicon of the industry but lacks definition and actionable tactics. This paper offers a definition of the term and creates a context for how investments in software and hardware solutions can be applied as a strategy toward a more interoperable logistics community. Tactics and implementation strategies are described along with examples of past, current and future digital transformation initiatives from different facets of logistics. Tactics and strategies are shared with the intent to better prepare organisations to take advantage of the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) that are evolving rapidly.
Keywords: digital transformation, digitisation, interoperability, AI/ML, LTL
Reinventing manufacturing: Beyond factory walls
Gunter Beitinger, Head of Factory Digitalisation and Head of Product Carbon Footprint/SiGreen and Petra Monn, Operational Programme Lead, Siemens

Even before being challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Siemens manufacturing system, which has produced the company’s extensive hardware portfolio since its foundation 175 years ago, needed to reinvent itself. It did so by organising its multiple factory networks to serve a common purpose: to enable intelligent operations through the best automation and digitalisation technologies possible. Deeply rooted in the lean principles, Siemens factories unite their experts in groups across business units while closely integrating IT. Each group is concerned with a I4R technology cluster, defining a ‘north star’ and embedding use cases, as well as implementation projects in their factory overarching approach. This paper describes how, in working closely with solution providers for the realisation of their use cases, those groups act as catalysts — not only for constituting the elements of the factories’ information technology/operations technology (IT/OT) architecture, but also for new business models, such as a distributed ledger-based CO2 footprint evaluation system.
Keywords: I4R, IT/OT convergence, digital lighthouse, digital twin
Effort optimisation and performance improvement in the compliant implementation of supply chain laws
Klaus-Jürgen Meier, Munich University of Applied Sciences

Like other countries, Germany is now following suit and introducing a supply chain law. This type of law obliges companies to exercise due diligence towards suppliers. Compliance with human rights, environmental protection and social standards must be ensured not only for direct suppliers, but along the entire supply chain. This significantly increases the complexity of procurement and poses challenges for existing purchasing organisations. What is needed is an approach that enables the legal requirements to be met with manageable effort. This conceptual paper discusses approaches for companies to reduce the resulting effort from supply chain law initiative — especially in Germany — and even improve performance at the same time. Audits are shown to be a central means of meeting these legal obligations. This also includes so-called remote audits, which promise comparatively low-effort execution, especially in a global context. Based on the application of international standards, the paper complies with the due diligence obligations of the supply chain law. The result is an assessment of whether and to what extent remote audits are suitable for fulfilling the obligation, how they can be optimally organised in agile interaction with on-site audits and where the limits are. It is also evident that auditing of direct and indirect suppliers in the supply chain can be used to achieve performance improvements and cost reductions elsewhere. Finally, the paper summarises which accompanying measures help to further reduce the burden on companies.
Keywords: supply chain law, remote and hybrid audits, global purchasing, legal and regulatory issues, social responsibility, future shape of supply chains

Volume 4 Number 3

Editorial
Simon Beckett, Publisher
Encoding structural agility and resilient response ability to emergent risks within the global supply chain
Arjun Varma, Global Director and Head of Strategic Capacity Management, Beiersdorf

This paper provides a roadmap on how to go about implementing supply resilience within a global organisation. It talks about the imperative to focus on supply agility and resilience in an increasingly VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) environment, the ten core principles leveraging which one can build an effective supply resilience approach. It then discusses the need to have a holistic supply resilience program across source, make and deliver with cross-functional representatives and executive sponsorship. The paper speaks in some detail about how to go about conceptualising and executing the different workstreams of the program around procurement, manufacturing, logistics, resilient planning and innovation resilience. One needs to look at the big picture and hence it is important to bring the outputs and analytics of the different workstreams together to drive an end-to-end view of supply resilience and agility for a category and then overall for the supply chain. The paper gives an approach on how to look at this end-to-end view. Finally, it suggests the key success factors and tailwinds that are necessary to successfully execute and embed the supply resilience programme within the DNA of the organisation.
Keywords: supply chain resilience, supply chain risk management, supply chain agility, assortment harmonisation, integrated capacity and network management, procurement resilience, manufacturing resilience, logistics resilience, innovation resilience, end-to-end supply resilience, balance cost versus service versus resilience
Collaborative mobile robots: Bringing greater productivity and flexibility to warehouse operations
Fergal Glynn, Vice President, 6 River Systems and Corey Cook, Senior Programme Manager, Lockheed Martin

In an increasingly digital world, warehouses need to implement automation in order to reach optimal productivity and customer demand. Customer behaviour changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic have only heightened the need for automation, bringing record-breaking, peak-level demands to fulfilment operators at various points throughout 2020. This paper discusses the many benefits of implementing wall-to-wall fulfilment automation, including collaborative mobile robots, into warehouse operations. Most commonly users see greater efficiency, flexibility and workplace morale. The paper also explores a use case of how global security and aerospace company Lockheed Martin greatly improved efficiency in its warehouse and solved major material handling challenges by adding collaborative mobile robots into its fulfilment centre.
Keywords: warehouse automation, collaborative mobile robots, fulfilment
Supply chain redesign: From building resiliency to positioning for growth
Jeff Jorge, Principal and Cory Wendt, Principal, Baker Tilly

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed gaps in supply chains and the fragility of lean manufacturing approaches; no company or industry was spared its disruptive effects. Companies have figured out how to become resilient. Now comes the hard part: pivoting to growing and expanding their business. This paper examines the competitive advantages of supply chain management, the role of dynamic costing in determining real costs, strategic investments in procurement and purchasing solutions, and alternative capacity or nearshoring.
Keywords: supply chains, procurement, resiliency, growth, dynamic costing, nearshoring
Modernising the company Edison built: Applying innovation and digitisation at GE appliances
Bill Good, Vice President of Manufacturing, GE Appliances

GE Appliances (GEA), a Haier company, has implemented new, innovative strategies as part of its five-year transformation goal of knowing and serving consumers better and creating a winning culture where employee entrepreneurs thrive. Through implementing a new microenterprise business model with a ‘Zero Distance’ philosophy and creating a digital supply chain, GEA has become the fastest growing appliance company in the US. A summary of the company’s new business model, including details on the microenterprise structure and new House of Brands, is presented in this paper, as well as several key components of the digital supply chain implementation. In addition, the company has a bold philosophy on upskilling its workforce, and this paper shares several examples of talent development programmes GEA has implemented to develop the digital supply chain leaders of tomorrow.
Keywords: digital supply chain, transformative leadership, business model, Zero Distance, company transformation, entrepreneurship, microenterprises
Supply chain resilience must endure as a business imperative
Bill Demartino, Chief Product Officer and Matthew York, Senior Solutions Marketing Manager, riskmethods Inc

The concept of supply chain resilience has become widely accepted as an imperative for the enterprise, with the COVID-19 pandemic helping to crystallise it as an objective in itself. Business leaders are now pondering what this means for their organisations and in particular their bottom lines. It is within this context that the role of the enterprise must evolve to make risk awareness an essential element of supply management processes and decisions. This paper explores some of the initiatives that are driving the demand for supply chain resilience and demonstrates a coalescing need for broader risk awareness. It discusses the fundamental changes to the circumstances of supply management in the wake of the deadliest global pandemic in more than a century. It goes on to look at the journey of becoming more risk-aware — including taking the mantle of leadership within a network that outlines tactical approaches and the necessary building blocks for creating a supply chain-resilient enterprise.
Keywords: supply chain, supply chain risk management (SCRM), resilience, digitisation, digital transformation
Preparing procurement professionals: Your organisation’s competitive advantage
Marisa Brown, Senior Principal Research Lead, APQC, et al.

Skilled procurement professionals are in high demand, especially after the supply chain disruptions organisations have faced over the past year. However, this paper finds that current-state procurement talent development is not adequate. Procurement faces a leaky talent pipeline, as young professionals see the discipline as a mere stepping stone to other more lucrative career paths. This sentiment is amplified by the structure and focus of most organisations’ talent development programmes for procurement, which offer only the most basic and traditional approaches and focus on yesterday’s skill sets rather than future-ready capabilities. This paper explores the root causes of the procurement talent problem and offers actionable solutions for building more relevant, productive, attractive development programmes.
Keywords: procurement, sourcing, talent development, training, retention, soft skills
After a crisis: Operational restart and contingency planning in manufacturing
Terry Onica, Director of Automotive, QAD, Cathy Fisher, President, Quistem and Lori Sisk, Assistant Professor of Teaching of Global Supply Chain Management, Wayne State University

As the COVID-19 pandemic closed manufacturing plants and disrupted supply chains in early 2020, we looked at how original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and tiers in the automotive industry responded, pivoted and restarted. Contingency plans and restart tasks took centre stage, sometimes coming up short. We found that many downstream tier suppliers lacked contingency plans altogether for managing operational disruptions of the magnitude we faced during the pandemic. We developed the operational restart readiness checklist (ORR checklist) with a focus on contingency planning in the automotive industry. It served as the basis for our work as we developed a survey of restart and recovery activities, created a presentation and webinar and drafted an eBook on the impact and root causes of supply chain disruptions. We identified the resources needed to return to operational stability amid restart challenges. Our ORR checklist offers manufacturers a framework for improving contingency planning. This paper describes our findings and recommendations on operational restart and recovery, and the need for automation and technology.
Keywords: supply chain, operational restart, supply chain disruption, automotive supply chain, supply chain risk, risk management, crisis management, contingency planning

Volume 4 Number 2

Editorial
Simon Beckett, Publisher
Managing supply chains and equalising disruption in the post-pandemic era: The challenge of different stages of recovery levels across the globe
Eirini Etoimou, Head of Supply Chain, Development & Innovation, Sellafield Ltd

It is no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way we operate, both personally and professionally. With significant impacts in all facets of the business ecosystem across the globe and uncertain recovery timelines, the socioeconomic environment is facing an unprecedented situation measuring damages at local, national and global level. Business operational models have been tested and are still trying to recover from a situation the long-term impact of which is still vague. Systems such as lean and just-in-time (JIT) collapsed as a result of the lockdowns and whole cities were deserted, causing unprecedented levels of poverty among vulnerable populations, significantly increasing cases of trafficking and modern slavery. This paper analyses how rebuilding presents a challenge, but, at the same time, there are numerous opportunities to evaluate, improve and develop next actions, based on a different perspective. The lessons learned from the pandemic include risk mitigation and resilience, without overlooking the ethical face that is encapsulated by strategic business relationships.
Keywords: risk management, supply chains, resilience, recovery, ethics, risk, transparency, collaboration, disruption
Establishing competency in sustainable procurement in the age of ESG reporting
Catherine Sheehy, Global Lead for Sustainability, Circularity and ESG Strategist, UL and Josh Jacobs, Director of Sustainability, WAP Sustainability

With the rise of environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting and a growing number of activist investors demanding greater visibility into organisations’ true impacts beyond financial performance, sustainable procurement is increasingly essential. With an already daunting list of product and service criteria and considerations, however, many procurement teams are unsure how to effectively incorporate sustainability requirements into their existing procurement programmes. This paper explores the surge in sustainable procurement, outlines the critical factors for successful implementation and presents tools and resources instrumental for developing guidelines. This information gives procurement professionals a starting point to successfully establish sustainable procurement in their own organisations.
Keywords: sustainability, sustainable procurement, supply chain transparency, environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting, environmental labels
Reducing uncertainty in freight transportation procurement
Chris Caplice, Chief Scientist, DAT Freight and Analytics

Securing sufficient truckload transportation capacity is a challenge for most shippers. The dominant design currently used across North America is to run an annual reverse auction collecting rates from carriers on each of their freight lanes (origin-destination pairings) and then feeding these rates into the shipper’s transportation management system (TMS), which then uses a routing guide to determine which carrier to tender a load to when a particular shipment materialises. Unfortunately, the routing guide frequently fails. This results in the shipper having to use backup carriers or the spot market, thereby incurring much higher rates. This paper explains why the current dominant design arose in the first place and why it is no longer sufficient. Four promising practices that can improve the transportation procurement process for shippers, carriers and brokers are presented and discussed: Data-driven analysis, transportation portfolio management, dynamic contracting and continuous procurement. These practices are meant to complement the current procurement methods in order to reduce the risk and level of uncertainty for all parties by making the procurement process more dynamic and responsive to the market.
Keywords: truckload transportation, procurement, mini-bids, transportation portfolio management, contracting
Hitting the procurement trifecta: How FHLB San Francisco transformed and aligned procurement, risk and diversity in the middle of a pandemic
Kelly Gear, Senior Vice President, Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco and Tom Rogers, Founder and CEO, Vendor Centric and Jennifer Ulrich, Senior Director, Corcentric

Procurement transformations involve a strategic review and realignment of an organisation’s procurement function to address critical operational gaps. This paper focuses on the execution of such transformation activities within a heavily regulated financial services organisation that faced several internal and external gaps. Gaps included a heavy reliance on suppliers to maintain critical operations, increased regulatory oversight and a lack of standardisation and organisational integration within the procurement function needed to service internal customers. A successful transformation for such an organisation required a focus on three primary pillars (workstreams): procurement, supplier diversity and supplier risk. Each workstream addressed a unique set of challenges and, as such, were carried out independently; however, the interrelated nature of these challenges called for strong planning, shared resources and parallel efforts. The results of the initial gap assessments showed a need for procurement team right-sizing (in terms of resources and role definitions), a revision of core policy and standard operating procedures, and a re-evaluation of the technologies that supported both procurement operations and regulatory reporting/compliance. The transformation, embodied by the three pillars above, addressed each of these gaps. This transformation began the reimagining of the procurement function but work in this space is ongoing. Requirements around third-party risk management, supplier diversity and the regulatory landscape will continue to shift and evolve. Regular monitoring of the effectiveness of this transformation must be conducted, and strategic pivots and change management efforts must be undertaken to ensure long-term success.
Keywords: procurement transformation, supplier diversity, supplier risk management, stakeholder engagement, regulatory compliance
Going digital in logistics: Cultivating a culture and roadmap for digital success
Mike Jones, Director of Logistics, Gerdau

Companies are increasingly tasked with taking their logistics operations into a new increasingly digitised world. This paper follows a cultural evolution that supported a parallel digital transformation of Gerdau North America Logistics. In 2018, Gerdau North America Logistics had few digital tools at its disposal, information was classified as hearsay and firefighting business issues was a daily occurrence. Addressing a lack of tools took Gerdau Logistics through a journey of digital evolution, which would improve trust in information, improve employee engagement, establish internal partnerships and ultimately change the way Gerdau conducted business. Readers will most likely find parallels to their own logistics and supply chain processes and hopefully glean opportunities worth pursuing at their own organisations.
Keywords: digital evolution, logistics, technology, shipping, warehousing, culture, people, transformation
Contract digitisation an analytics: Goodbye paper audits, welcome to real-time scoring
Joan Duemler, Supply Chain Business Operations Manager, Intel Corporation

Intel’s global supply chain (GSC) is continually innovating in pursuit of an autonomous digital supply chain. In Q4 2018, the indirect materials team identified a formidable challenge: reading all contract documents to assess and identify key vulnerabilities in the contract. After conducting external scans of contract analytics solutions, the advanced analytics team embarked on a journey to disrupt the contract domain. In this paper they share their insights and the solution they achieved with their stakeholders, rich with business content expertise and robust analytics.
Keywords: contract analytics, innovation, digitisation, machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), autonomous digital supply chain
Collaboration in procurement and supply chain management: Cooperative strategies for ensuring continuity of supply
Tammy Rimes, Executive Director, National Cooperative Procurement Partners and Darin Matthews, Director, Mercell/Faculty Member, University of California, Santa Cruz

Supply chain management and procurement processes are a crucial element within every organisation, both public and private. Behind every company or government success story, there is generally a supply chain process that helped deliver that success. Whether delivering the goods to keep operations running smoothly, ordering equipment and materials for a new project or working with suppliers in finding solutions to address unique problems, procurement is at the centre of most organisational plans and processes. Supply chain management took centre stage during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, as many jurisdictions across the United States vied for the same products over a very short timeframe. Companies which produced such products were caught off-guard by the sudden demand and any stockpiled resources were quickly consumed. The resulting effects were hoarding behaviours by purchasers who did not know when supplies would be restocked, or territorial disputes as the federal government or states often pulled rank over smaller entities by confiscating or rerouting incoming deliveries to serve their own priorities. During the past few years, many governments and companies built their supply chain on ‘next day’ delivery from suppliers, minimised their warehousing operations, or relied heavily on bids and request for proposal (RFP) processes that often take months to complete. The new challenges presented throughout the pandemic required updated supply chain strategies and contracting methodologies to serve the ever-changing operational and safety demands of their customers.
Keywords: cooperative procurement, coop contract, public procurement, collaborative procurement, leveraged spend

Volume 4 Number 1

Editorial
Simon Beckett, Publisher
Artificial intelligence in materials handling: How machine learning tools boost warehouse safety, productivity and cost-effectiveness
Brien Downie, President, Holman Logistics, Marc Gyöngyösi, CEO and President, OneTrack AI and Chris Kuehl, Economist and Managing Director, Armada Corporate Intelligence

This paper explores the growing potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to bring about improvements in safety, which in turn can boost cost-effectiveness, productivity and operational efficiencies in a warehouse setting. While there is significant evidence in the literature on the impact AI is having in other areas of the supply chain, the authors believe the specific use of AI and ML in the warehouse has been underexplored. Companies that embrace machine-learning technologies and tools as a way to reduce incidents in their warehouses are improving worker safety, increasing productivity, and potentially yielding a competitive advantage for their businesses. This paper’s main purpose is to demonstrate, through a use-case approach, the clear benefits of these technologies and to promote further exploration of the potential of AI to drive improvements in the safety of materials handling in warehouse settings.
Keywords: case studies, materials management, technology management, transportation, distribution, logistics, warehousing
The case for applying systems thinking to global supply chain management
Dan Gardner, President, Trade Facilitators

‘Systems thinking’ is an engineering discipline designed to improve the performance of any type of system by leveraging the interactions that take place between its component parts. Because it focuses on the interdependencies that exist among the elements that comprise a system’s structure, as well as the feedback loops that occur within it, systems thinking is ideal for application to the field of supply chain management. Whereas the principles of systems thinking can be seen in supply chain simulations such as ‘the beer game’, its use has not kept up with the complexities inherent in globalisation. It is the objective of this paper to reintroduce systems thinking to global trade professionals and demonstrate how the application of its tenets to supply chain management can yield order-of-magnitude advances in operational outcomes, supplier relations, customer satisfaction, corporate citizenship and financial results.
Keywords: systems thinking, system dynamics, predictive analytics, sales and operations planning, global supply chain management
Breaking down silos: A journey from functional distance to collaborative accountability
Laura Eory, Senior Manager of Transportation, GAF

Silos or behaviours that disconnect people from others within their organisation can play a key role in the overall performance of companies, especially large businesses. This paper explains how to review current silos, address or minimise challenges within them, and create employee engagement and collaborative accountability. There are many types, but three significant silos to avoid and address include physical, organisational and experiential silos. Once silos are identified, ‘broken down’, or minimised, leaders often declare victory and are surprised to see them return. By aligning goals and establishing a culture of collaborative accountability, engaged leaders can maintain better communication and connections across teams and functions to ensure the broader organisation continues moving forward together in pursuing broader business strategy. All these pieces together help create optimal performance and deliver top results.
Keywords: silos, physical, organisation, experience, goals, accountability, supply chain
Managing supply chain risk and building sustainable resilience
Knut Alicke, Partner, Julian Fischer, Associate Partner and Anna Lena Strigel, Associate Partner, McKinsey & Company

Global production networks that took shape to optimise costs and efficiency often contain hidden vulnerabilities — and external shocks exploit those weaknesses. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed existing challenges across business operations and thrust an organisation’s ability to adapt to dramatic shifts in supply and demand into the spotlight. However, even before COVID‑19, a multitude of events in recent years temporarily disrupted production at many companies. All of this is occurring against a backdrop of changing cost structures across countries and growing adoption of revolutionary digital technologies in global manufacturing. Organisations need a new approach to manage risk and build resiliency. This research highlights the many options for strengthening value chain resilience in response to risk and evaluates strategies to minimise the growing cost of disruption, including opportunities arising from new technologies, strengthening risk management capabilities and improving transparency, building redundancy, reducing product complexity, and improving the financial and operational capacity to respond to shocks and recover quickly from them.
Keywords: supply chain resilience, risk management, organisational resilience, operational resilience
Best practices in 3PL and fulfilment contract procurement: A methodological approach to optimising 3PL rates and services
Steve Givens, Managing Director, Shipware

With the proliferation of online shopping, the e-commerce industry is growing exponentially. As a direct result, third party logistics (3PL) fulfillment support services are rapidly growing and considered a critical part of the customer experience. 3PL fulfillment support services are not only important to completing the last leg of the e-commerce and business-to-business (B2B) transactional process, but also have an impact on customer satisfaction, long-term customer loyalty and the overall brand experience. The 3PL fulfillment market has changed significantly over the last 50 years, and the scope of the support services has also changed throughout the decades. Overall direction of the industry changed forever on 5th July, 1994, when Amazon was founded and began operations. In the late 20th century, online commerce launched a modern-day gold rush and with newfound fortunes to be made, the fulfillment market was flooded with new companies from various industries that all wanted to stake their claims. Today, understanding the 3PL market options, pricing methodologies and service level agreements (SLAs) is critically important to selecting the best 3PL partner to support your current needs and help you scale your business for the future. The 3PL contract optimisation process starts with selecting the right partner, developing the appropriate contract terms and conditions, scope alignment and performance incentives to lay the foundation for a successful partnership. Ongoing contract optimisation requires a formalised process to evaluate performance, review market alternatives and deliver efficiencies. The ideal state of fulfillment services contract optimisation is achieved when the 3PL relationship delivers maximum shareholder value from best-in-class pricing, outstanding service and long-term goal alignment.
Keywords: third party logistics (3PL), fulfillment, optimisation, procurement, transportation
Using a control tower approach to drive visibility, aid planning and improve supply chain reliability
Charlie Midkiff, Vice President, Odyssey Logistics & Technology

As the transportation management solutions (TMS) market continues to grow, a control tower approach to TMS is emerging as a way to drive even more visibility into logistics and supply chain management processes. With transparency and access to real-time data provided by a TMS, shippers can develop smarter strategies, make quicker decisions and stay ahead of trends to ensure on-time delivery and meet operational goals. With vaccines going into arms, it is time to look toward the post-pandemic world and how TMS and the control tower approach fit into the future of the logistics and supply chain industry. This paper sets out many of the processes and practices that emerged to keep goods moving during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely here to stay. For example, consumers will continue to expect seamless transparency in shipping operations, freight transit and delivery. Having visibility through a TMS and the control tower approach can help shippers take action in a world forever changed by the pandemic. They can use the data and insight gained from a TMS to improve performance throughout the supply chain and identify opportunities to reduce costs. Shippers can undertake network optimisation studies to develop Plan B scenarios to get shipments to destinations around the world. They can find alternatives to congested ports to move product more quickly. In addition, shippers can leverage transloading service providers with TMS and control tower capabilities to find faster ways to transport products when disruptions occur — and have 24/7 visibility to their products to the very last mile.
Keywords: transportation management solutions (TMS), logistics, supply chain management processes, post-pandemic, control tower approach, COVID-19, network optimisation studies
Adaptive logistics: Conceptualising strategies and best practices from humanitarian emergency supplies distribution
Andrew Schroeder, Vice President of Research and Analysis, Direct Relief and Cindy Elliott, Head of Commercial Industry Solutions, Esri

In today’s globally driven marketplace, the endurance of supply chains is becoming increasingly critical for them to withstand long-term and short-term fluctuations of market forces. Many of the products necessary for basic needs and consumers’ discretionary spending come from complex global supply chains that face frequent external challenges and disruptions. So how can global providers build more efficient logistics practices and enduring supply chains? Humanitarian aid supply chains have discovered best practices and formulas for building resilient programmes to effectively do their work and could serve as a model. This paper explores how one organisation, Direct Relief, employs an innovative adaptive distribution strategy backed by smart maps, dashboards, other location technology tools powered by modern GIS (geographic information systems) technology. The authors provide a definition of adaptive logistics, share key examples of how it was implemented, and provide steps other organisations can take to improve their own supply chain and logistics operations.
Keywords: adaptive logistics, geospatial technology, spatial analysis, location technology, location intelligence, GIS, humanitarian aid, networks, supply chain management
3PL collaboration: Supply chain success stories between shippers and 3PLs
Robin C. Siekerman, Vice President of Marketing and Customer Solutions, The Shippers Group

Two compelling case studies address true shipper and third-party logistics (3PL) collaboration and what it looks like to get to a symbiotic relationship and mutualism. This is a place where true collaboration occurs, resulting in benefits of service, efficiency and balance of cost and profit for supply chain partners. In this paper are examples of how healthy conflict builds trust, especially when one party initially perceived a successful outcome as one-sided. The focus is on how collaboration among supply chain partnerships produces innovative solutions, more efficient operations, lower logistics costs and better service. The paper explores types of collaboration and when they work best, how to drive collaboration with customers and key outcomes of collaboration in consumer packaged goods (CPG) supply chains.
Keywords: 3PL warehousing, CPG manufacturing, supply chain, strategic collaboration, tactical collaboration, partnership, collaborative innovation