A Review of Supply Chain Data Mining Publications

The use of data mining in supply chains is growing, and covers almost all aspects of supply chain management. A framework of supply chain analytics is used to classify data mining publications reported in supply chain management academic literature. Scholarly articles were identified using SCOPUS and EBSCO Business search engines. Articles were classified by supply chain function. Additional papers reflecting technology, to include RFID use and text analysis were separately reviewed. The paper concludes with discussion of potential research issues and outlook for future development

Hiding in Plain Sight: An ILO Convention on Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains

This Article proposes a solution to the primary challenge currently confronting governments, employers, and workers under international labor law: how to promote and protect decent labor conditions in global supply chains (GSCs). The Article begins by summarizing why existing public law and private law approaches have failed to meet this challenge over several decades. It describes the shortcomings of law and practice in developing countries as well as the weakness of corporate social responsibility (CSR), including the most ambitious version of CSR, the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. It then analyzes the problems with recent national laws in developed countries that impose mandates on multinational enterprises (MNEs) at the top of global supply chains— laws requiring disclosure and transparency in labor-protection efforts and laws requiring a due diligence process to identify and monitor against human rights risks. The centerpiece of the Article is its argument for an international convention, promulgated by the International Labor Organization (ILO), that includes three essential features missing from existing voluntary and mandatory approaches. First, business obligations must include substantive responsibility to avoid involvement in supply chain human rights violations, not just procedural responsibility to adhere to a set of due diligence processes. In this context, the Article explores different approaches to establishing tort liability for violations under both U.S. and European law. Second, workers and their representatives must directly participate in the design, implementation, and enforcement of a due diligence system. Third, all workers engaged in supply chain activities must be protected, regardless of their formal employment or contractual status under relevant national law. The Article additionally considers issues of jurisdiction, enforcement, and remedies likely to arise under the convention. Finally, the Article addresses the appropriateness and feasibility of such a convention. It identifies several factors that support a leadership role for the ILO and discusses the impact of existing ILO conventions on national laws in ways that extend beyond formal ratification. The Article closes with a suggestion to invite newer voices from the worker and employer communities to participate in discussions about labor conditions in GSCs alongside the recognized trade union and employer organizations

Procurement and contractual choices for engineer-to-order supply chains

Complex projects are increasingly collaborative, involving ever greater numbers of multiple organisations, while also seeking to deliver high levels of innovation. To gain insight into how supply chain management might be developed to better support these developments, many have looked to high volume manufacturing to benchmark and seek best practice. Outcomes have often fallen short of expectation: in the construction sector, for instance, productivity and adversarial relationships are still a major cause of concern in many countries. While there have been some successes in transferring technologies and supply chain innovation from high volume manufacturing to engineering intensive sectors, such as construction, shipbuilding, machinery and capital goods, the more general narrative is of the difficulties that have arisen. We see these difficulties arising from underlying differences between the between supply chain types, and have developed a body of knowledge for "engineer-to-order" situations to better support such sectors. The procurement process is crucial to establishing conditions for success and is typically a major source of concern for the supply chain. Hence, we summarise the findings of a research project that focused on developing the principles required for procurement excellence and to structure the possible contractual choices in engineer-to-order supply chains

The Role of Knowledge Management in Supply Chain Management: A Literature Review

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to examine the state of knowledge management research in supply chain management from three standpoints, methodological approach, supply chain management area, and knowledge management processes. Design/methodology/approach: To achieve this, a systematic review is conducted over the period 2000-2014 on the basis of a qualitative content analysis. Findings: Major results showed that knowledge management can be viewed as a leverage mechanism for: (i) supply chain integration; (ii) the enhancement of intra and inter-relations across the supply chain; (iii) supply chain strategy alignment; and (iv) the reinforcement of knowledge transfer in product development. Some supply chain management areas such as reverse logistics, inventory management, forecasting/demand planning, outsourcing, and risk management have been explored only to some extent. Furthermore, knowledge transfer is being studied in the majority of the articles, mainly by both case study and survey approach; mathematical models and simulation techniques are used in very limited articles. Findings concerning theoretical perspectives and managerial issues are also described. Research limitations/implications: The limitation of our study encompasses the aspects of search period (2000-2014), selection of search databases (Web of Science and SCOPUS and language selection (English). Practical implications: The exhibition of the KM processes within the SC context may help practitioners and managers interested in implementing KM initiatives to replicate the methodologies in order to increase the possibilities of a successful KM adoption. Originality/value: The systematic review will contribute to the understanding of the present state of research in the knowledge management theory, with focus on the supply chain, as there are no state-of-knowledge studies that report a systematic literature review approach.Peer Reviewe

Tracing Failure of Coral Reef Protection in Nonstate Market-Driven Governance

Institutional failure remains an important blind spot in the private governance literature. In this article we argue that a focus on scope conditions alone cannot explain why some programs thrive while others cease to exist. Studying the now-defunct Marine Aquarium Council—a certification program for coral reef protection—we adopt an institutional-process approach to fill this gap. Our main points can be summarized in a two-step argument: First, we argue that the scope conditions of private governance are partly endogenous to these processes. Through making strategic decisions, private governance programs have a certain level of control over their environment, and thus over the scope conditions under which they operate. Second, initial choices often unfold path dependencies over time. By tracing the evolution of the Marine Aquarium Council, we illustrate the program’s “mission creep” and the “vicious cycle” of self-reinforcing activity that culminated in its failure

Looking for a quick fix: How weak social auditing is keeping workers in sweatshop

CCC_05_quick_fix.pdf: 4178 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

A data mining-based framework for supply chain risk management

Increased risk exposure levels, technological developments and the growing information overload in supply chain networks drive organizations to embrace data-driven approaches in Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM). Data Mining (DM) employs multiple analytical techniques for intelligent and timely decision making; however, its potential is not entirely explored for SCRM. The paper aims to develop a DM-based framework for the identification, assessment and mitigation of different type of risks in supply chains. A holistic approach integrates DM and risk management activities in a unique framework for effective risk management. The framework is validated with a case study based on a series of semi-structured interviews, discussions and a focus group study. The study showcases how DM supports in discovering hidden and useful information from unstructured risk data for making intelligent risk management decisions

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse