Archive | February 2023

Thinking Differently About Supply Chain Resilience

Today I would like to introduce you to our new article entitled Thinking Differently About Supply Chain Resilience: What We Can Learn From Social-Ecological Systems Thinking, which is the result of an exciting collaboration with Mark Stevenson, Steven A. Melnyk, Simin Davoudi, and Lisen Schultz. We argue that the supply chain resilience literature should be expanded to include insights from the social-ecological systems literature. Five practical examples of disruptive events are used to demonstrate how current theoretical lenses fail to capture the complexity of supply chain resilience. The article presents three manifestations of resilience (persistence, adaptation, and transformation) and seven principles of resilience thinking that can be applied to supply chains. We believe that a social-ecological interpretation of supply chains offers many new avenues for research, which may rely on the use of innovative research methods to advance our understanding of supply chain resilience. Our article has been published in the International Journal of Operations & Production Management.

Wieland, A., Stevenson, M., Melnyk, S.A., Davoudi, S., & Schultz, L. (2023). Thinking Differently About Supply Chain Resilience: What We Can Learn From Social-Ecological Systems Thinking, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 43(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-10-2022-0645

A Brief Introduction to Grammarly and Deepl Write

As the recent debate about ChatGPT has shown, artificial intelligence tools are advancing rapidly. Today, I would like to introduce two AI tools that can be used to improve the language of academic texts. The first tool, Grammarly, can be integrated into programs like Word and suggests improvements, both in terms of errors and style. Grammarly has already found a large following among academic writers. The second tool is called Deepl Write and is currently in beta. It allows users to type text into an input field and get an improved text back. I tested this tool today by using it to improve the text of this blog post. While such tools may not be perfect, I believe they can help increase participation in SCM research by non-native speakers and those who cannot afford expensive proofreading services. The development is moving fast and I am excited to see what comes next.