Achieving resilience in the supply chain by applying IoT technology

In the past few decades, competition has increased between organizations as a result of globalization and fast development in IT. Companies these days are continuously looking to expand their market geographically to attract new customers. With that in mind, the main concern of companies is to achieve their customers’ requirements, which makes the supply chain (SC) longer and more complex. This leads to increased difficulty in managing the SC along with controlling risks and disruptions in SC. Such as loss of a critical supplier, a fire accident in the production facility, or an act of terrorism. To deal with these risks, SC must be designed to provide an efficient and effective response, keep its process working and be capable of recovering to their original state after disruptive events, this is considered as the core of supply chain resilience (SCRes). Furthermore, companies that design their SC with capabilities to react quickly to any disruptions in its process have the opportunity to become more stabilized and acquire an improved position in the market. Researchers have been exploring ways to acquire supply chain resilience, such as encouraging and improving collaboration between SC partners or by increasing the organization’s visibility through monitoring SC events and patterns. Studies have shown that IT has a role in improving SCRes, such as information-sharing systems to promote collaboration and visibility tactics. However, recent research trends are exploring new and emerging technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT). Despite the growing interest in IoT, minimal research has been carried out for its application in SCRes. Research in this direction is necessary to explore opportunities provided by IoT to redesign SC which in turn reinforces flexibility of supply chains and aspects of analysis of the product quality and how it could enable companies to improve their SCRes. This study is directly focused to identify and highlight this gap.N/

Cost-Containment Strategies Used by Hospital Business Leaders for Pharmaceutical Inventory

Ineffective strategies to contain the costs of medical supply inventory can result in financial loss and are a significant challenge for hospital leaders. Grounded in complex adaptive systems theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore the cost-containment strategies that private hospital business leaders use to reduce the expense of pharmaceutical inventory. The participants comprised six private hospital business leaders in one healthcare organization in Myanmar. Data were collected from semistructured interviews, internal company documents, and publicly available annual reports. Four themes emerged from Yin’s five-step data analysis method: (a) management controls, (b) specialist engagement and compliance, (c) supplier management, and (d) centralized systems. A key recommendation is for hospital business leaders to use the themes to develop a framework and identify what strategies they already have in place and what strategies they may not have yet defined. Once developed, the framework may facilitate system change and support monitoring processes. The implication for positive social change includes the potential for hospital business leaders to support the affordability of pharmaceuticals by passing savings onto their patients so that they are more likely to purchase the medications they require to remain healthy