Local water stress impacts on global supply chains: Network configuration and natural capital perspectives

$\textbf{Purpose}$ – This paper proposes a novel resource availability assessment for supply chain configuration. This approach involves understanding of both local resource availability and the demand-side implications of supplying global/regional markets as part of a more holistic supply chain design activity incorporating local environmental factors. $\textbf{Design/methodology/approach}$ - The proposed framework was derived from literature analysis, bridging relevant literature domains – Natural Capital theory, Industrial Ecology, and Supply Chain configuration - in order to develop design rules for future resource constrained industrial systems. In order to test the proposed framework exploratory case study, based on secondary data, was conducted. $\textbf{Findings}$ – Research findings suggest that this approach might better identify relationships and vulnerabilities between natural resource availability and the viability of regional/global supply chains. Our research suggests that natural resource availability depends upon three elements – local resource consumption, global resource demand, and external environmental factors. $\textbf{Research limitations}$ – The framework has two main limitations. The current work is focused only on a single industry case study used to exemplify the approach. Secondly, the framework does not consider other possible industries, which might enter or leave the specific location during the company’s operation. Furthermore, no assessment was made of migration of populations within the area. $\textbf{Practical implications}$ – For practitioners, such as those in the agri-food sector, the resource availability assessment framework informs supply chain configuration design. For policymakers, the research aims to provide policy guidelines, which can help to improve water saving strategies for a particular region. At a broader societal level, the research raises awareness of resource scarcity amongst industrial players and the wider public. $\textbf{Originality/value}$ – A resource availability assessment framework has been proposed, suggesting that the dynamics of both global and local resource demand, in conjunction with changing local environmental factors, can over time significantly deteriorate a firm’s natural resource impact on the local environment. Thus, the framework seeks to deliver mechanisms to evaluate potential vulnerabilities and solutions available to firms through a more proactive supply chain design method and apply reconfiguration processes that account for natural resources, based primarily on network and resource attributes.REMEDIES (RE-configuring MEDIcines End-to-end Supply), The Global Food Security Initiative Cambridge, UKIERI (UK-India Education and Research Initiative

Redistributed manufacturing in healthcare: Creating new value through disruptive innovation

The RiHN White Paper is the first serious attempt to gather expertise and to explore applications in promising areas of healthcare that could benefit from RDM and covers early-stage user needs, challenges and priorities. The UK has an opportunity to lead in this area and RiHN has identified an extensive number of areas for fruitful R&D, crossing production technology, infrastructure, business and organisations. The paper serves as a foundation for discussing future technological roadmaps and engaging the wider community and stakeholders, as well as policy makers, in addressing the potential impact of RDM.The RiHN White Paper is of particular value to policy makers and funders seeking to specify action and to direct attention where it is needed. The White Paper is also useful for the research community, to support their proposals with credible research propositions and to show where collaboration with industry and the public sector will deliver the most benefits.In order to seize the opportunities presented by RDM RiHN proposes a bold new agenda that incorporates a whole healthcare system view of future implementation pathways and wider transformation implications. The priority areas for Future R&D can be summarised as follows: throughAutomated production platform technologies and supporting manufacturing infrastructuresAdvances in analytics and metrologyNew regulatory frameworks and governance pathwaysNew frameworks for business model and organisational transformationThe time to take action is now. Technologies are developing that have the potential to disrupt traditional healthcare pathways and offer therapies tailored to individual needs and physiological characteristics. The challenge is seizing this opportunity and make the UK a world leader in RDM

Continuous manufacturing technologies in upstream pharmaceutical supply chains: Combining engineering and managerial criteria

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in upstream pharmaceutical supply chains (PSC). One is that the global supply of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) is overly dependent on few locations and large-scale batch manufacturing. Regulators hope to enable more dependable location decisions and improved processing quality with the adoption of advanced technologies such as process intensification through continuous manufacturing (CM). Conceptual work suggests that the benefits of shifting from batch to CM accrue end-to-end across the PSC. Yet detailed quantitative information about CM is limited at an early stage of evaluation, and too specialised to inform managerial decisions about PSC reconfiguration. Supply chain and engineering criteria are rarely combined in the early-stage evaluation of alternative CM technologies. Extant CM research typically overlooks implications for supply chain managers. To address the current gap, this paper evaluates, at an early stage of adoption, alternative CM reactor technologies for the synthesis of APIs in selected therapeutic areas. With evidence from secondary data, relevant technologies and criteria are identified, and their relative importance is evaluated in a semi-quantitative fashion following the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) principles, ensuring that findings are intelligible to both engineers and managers. The proposed empirical work enriches previous conceptual frameworks predicated on volume-variety considerations. Specifically, findings suggest that microreactor technologies outperform alternatives all things considered. However, PSC managerial considerations introduce nuances in specific therapeutic areas e.g., antivirals where a tension between complex chemistry and the need for flexibility in unit operations may favour batch manufacturing. For analgesics the need to exploit the existing manufacturing base whilst addressing inventory reduction favour technologies that incorporate elements of batch and CM. The proposed analysis is in line with real-world decisions that global medicines manufacturers are increasingly facing, as governments seek to develop local health countermeasures to the COVID-19 pandemic in the absence of detailed informatio

Interplay between Competing and Coexisting Policy Regimens within Supply Chain Configurations

Competing and coexisting policies (CACP) may arise from the incompatibility of incentives, standards and regulatory models between a local state and a federal government, or between two government jurisdictions across which supply networks operate. Traditional studies of supply chain dynamics typically explore the impact of policy regimens as standalone instruments. This paper explores how the interplay between CACP regimens can affect the supply dynamics between producers, customers, and their intermediaries. We use a supply network configuration lens to assess implications for supply chain actors and system-level outcomes. Our work is motivated by the federal-state dissonance in the current dispute between India’s farmers and the federal government regarding new laws that impact agricultural supply chains in India. In this case, alternative and coexisting policy interventions, ostensibly aimed at modernising and transforming production and distribution, can lead to significant supply chain netting and inventory pooling reconfigurations in terms of material, information and financial flows among Indian agricultural stakeholders, along with inventory repositioning and market creation options. In addition, of significance is the consequent shift in the balance between state/nation and federal/supranational equity and bargaining power, an increasingly relevant context where supply chains operate across a common but multi-jurisdictional territory, and implications for system-level outcomes, in this particular case equity, welfare economics and food security. We conclude by pointing to the implications of CACP regimens, and their interplay, for the broader field of operations management and supply chain research.This research has received funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) under Project Reference No. BB/P027970/1, Project Title: “TIGR2ESS: Transforming India’s Green Revolution by Research and Empowerment for Sustainable food Supplies”, a Global Challenges Research Fund award

The smart city production system

The smart city production syste