Critical Management Issues for Implementing RFID in Supply Chain Management

The benefits of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in the supply chain are fairly compelling. It has the potential to revolutionise the efficiency, accuracy and security of the supply chain with significant impact on overall profitability. A number of companies are actively involved in testing and adopting this technology. It is estimated that the market for RFID products and services will increase significantly in the next few years. Despite this trend, there are major impediments to RFID adoption in supply chain. While RFID systems have been around for several decades, the technology for supply chain management is still emerging. We describe many of the challenges, setbacks and barriers facing RFID implementations in supply chains, discuss the critical issues for management and offer some suggestions. In the process, we take an in-depth look at cost, technology, standards, privacy and security and business process reengineering related issues surrounding RFID technology in supply chains

A survey of simulation techniques in commerce and defence

Despite the developments in Modelling and Simulation (M&S) tools and techniques over the past years, there has been a gap in the M&S research and practice in healthcare on developing a toolkit to assist the modellers and simulation practitioners with selecting an appropriate set of techniques. This study is a preliminary step towards this goal. This paper presents some results from a systematic literature survey on applications of M&S in the commerce and defence domains that could inspire some improvements in the healthcare. Interim results show that in the commercial sector Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) has been the most widely used technique with System Dynamics (SD) in second place. However in the defence sector, SD has gained relatively more attention. SD has been found quite useful for qualitative and soft factors analysis. From both the surveys it becomes clear that there is a growing trend towards using hybrid M&S approaches

Evolution of Supply Chain Collaboration: Implications for the Role of Knowledge

Increasingly, research across many disciplines has recognized the shortcomings of the traditional “integration prescription” for inter-organizational knowledge management. This research conducts several simulation experiments to study the effects of different rates of product change, different demand environments, and different economies of scale on the level of integration between firms at different levels in the supply chain. The underlying paradigm shifts from a static, steady state view to a dynamic, complex adaptive systems and knowledge-based view of supply chain networks. Several research propositions are presented that use the role of knowledge in the supply chain to provide predictive power for how supply chain collaborations or integration should evolve. Suggestions and implications are suggested for managerial and research purposes

No. 20: The State of Food Insecurity in Maputo, Mozambique

Food insecurity is a fact of life for the vast majority of households across Maputo’s poverty belt. The Maputo urban food security survey done by AFSUN as part of its baseline survey of 11 Southern African cities found that households exist in a constant state of food insecurity manifested in a lack of access to sufficient affordable food, poor dietary quality and undernutrition. Income is meagre and only those households with access to wage income have any chance of holding food insecurity at bay. With a vibrant informal food economy, Maputo’s poor are surrounded by fresh and processed food. Food availability is therefore not the primary determinant of food insecurity in Maputo. Certainly large-scale food import from South Africa and further afield makes the market price of food inherently volatile. But prices for the consumer are also driven down by the fact that there is intense competition among vendors on the streets and in the marketplaces. The real cause of food insecurity is high urban unemployment and a lack of regular and decent-paying work. Among its recommendations, AFSUN urges the city of Maputo to set up a food security strategy that is multisectoral and policy-oriented and based on a better understanding of food flows into and within the city, the operation of the city’s informal food economy and the likely impacts of formal retailing for the food security of the urban poor

Visual analytics for supply network management: system design and evaluation

We propose a visual analytic system to augment and enhance decision-making processes of supply chain managers. Several design requirements drive the development of our integrated architecture and lead to three primary capabilities of our system prototype. First, a visual analytic system must integrate various relevant views and perspectives that highlight different structural aspects of a supply network. Second, the system must deliver required information on-demand and update the visual representation via user-initiated interactions. Third, the system must provide both descriptive and predictive analytic functions for managers to gain contingency intelligence. Based on these capabilities we implement an interactive web-based visual analytic system. Our system enables managers to interactively apply visual encodings based on different node and edge attributes to facilitate mental map matching between abstract attributes and visual elements. Grounded in cognitive fit theory, we demonstrate that an interactive visual system that dynamically adjusts visual representations to the decision environment can significantly enhance decision-making processes in a supply network setting. We conduct multi-stage evaluation sessions with prototypical users that collectively confirm the value of our system. Our results indicate a positive reaction to our system. We conclude with implications and future research opportunities.The authors would like to thank the participants of the 2015 Businessvis Workshop at IEEE VIS, Prof. Benoit Montreuil, and Dr. Driss Hakimi for their valuable feedback on an earlier version of the software; Prof. Manpreet Hora for assisting with and Georgia Tech graduate students for participating in the evaluation sessions; and the two anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments and suggestions. The study was in part supported by the Tennenbaum Institute at Georgia Tech Award # K9305. (K9305 - Tennenbaum Institute at Georgia Tech Award)Accepted manuscrip

No. 20: The State of Food Insecurity in Maputo, Mozambique

Food insecurity is a fact of life for the vast majority of households across Maputo’s poverty belt. The Maputo urban food security survey done by AFSUN as part of its baseline survey of 11 Southern African cities found that households exist in a constant state of food insecurity manifested in a lack of access to sufficient affordable food, poor dietary quality and undernutrition. Income is meagre and only those households with access to wage income have any chance of holding food insecurity at bay. With a vibrant informal food economy, Maputo’s poor are surrounded by fresh and processed food. Food availability is therefore not the primary determinant of food insecurity in Maputo. Certainly large-scale food import from South Africa and further afield makes the market price of food inherently volatile. But prices for the consumer are also driven down by the fact that there is intense competition among vendors on the streets and in the marketplaces. The real cause of food insecurity is high urban unemployment and a lack of regular and decent-paying work. Among its recommendations, AFSUN urges the city of Maputo to set up a food security strategy that is multisectoral and policy-oriented and based on a better understanding of food flows into and within the city, the operation of the city’s informal food economy and the likely impacts of formal retailing for the food security of the urban poor

The Conceptual Framework for Business Process Innovation: Towards a Research Program on Global Supply Chain Intelligence

This paper proposes a research program on Business Process Innovation: Towards Global Supply Chain Intelligence. Few words are more ubiquitous in business or society today than "innovation". This reflects that businesses are striving for ways to survive and thrive in an increasingly complex and connected world (IBM 2006). Most industrial supply chains today are globally scattered and nearly all organizations rely on their Enterprise Information Systems (ES) for integration and coordination of their activities. In this context innovation inevitably is driven by advanced information technology. Organizations today are required not only to operate effective business processes but they also need to accommodate to changing business conditions at an increasing rate. Consequently the ability to develop and implement new processes driven by the Enterprise Information Systems is a central competence in most industries, and furthermore it is a critical practice for a global enterprise. The next practice in Global Supply Chain Management is Business Process Innovation. Business Process Innovation is the transformation of a global supply chain driven by a new advanced Enterprise Information Systems technology. This technology holds the potential to "close the control loop", but until now few organizations have managed to unleash the full potential of global supply chain intelligence. Thus, there is an emerging need for managing the transformation and for new approaches that will lead to robust global supply chains. This paper presents a conceptual framework for Business Process Innovation. A research proposal based on five interrelated topics is derived from the framework. The research program is intended to establish and to develop the conceptual framework for business process innovation and to apply this framework in a global supply chain context. These topics are presented in the following sections, but first the background for the program is discussed.No keywords;

Exclusivity of Agrifood Supply Chains: Seven Fundamental Economic Characteristics

The IFAMR is published by the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association. IFAMA. www.ifama.orgagrifood supply chains, exclusive economic characteristics, risk, market power, globalization, Agribusiness, Demand and Price Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Risk and Uncertainty, Q130,