Tag Archive | Logistics
2014-07-30  

Academic Positions in Supply Chain Management

Are you considering an academic career in supply chain management? Akadeus and Academy of Management’s Career Center offer interesting collections of open positions in business schools worldwide. If you are looking for a teaching or research position in North America, then the following webpages might be helpful: Decision Sciences Institute Placement Services and INFORMS Career Center (both pages contain some positions outside North America, too). In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, the most important hub for academic positions at more senior levels is academics.com. Selected logistics/SCM-related positions can be found on the vacancies page of VHB’s WK Logistik (in German, but usually contains offers in English, too). A British webpage about academic employment is jobs.ac.uk; it is not restricted to positions in the UK. SCM positions are also announced on the Logprofs mailing list. Good luck with your application!

2014-06-15  

Logistics Trend Radar 2014

Trend research helps academics and managers to discover topics that are interesting and important alike. DHL has now published the 2014 edition of its Logistics Trends Radar. Trends discussed in this new report include (1) omni-channel logistics, which refers to “[t]he integration of different offline and online shopping channels making use of interactive eTags with personalized content and integrating social media and mobile devices”, (2) anticipatory logistics, which involves “[t]he big data analysis of customer product searches, shopping histories, wish-lists and even cursor movements in order to send a shipment even before the customer places an order” and (3) crypto payment, which is focused on “universal payment systems that allow global cross-currency payments to clear in seconds, support any unit of value […] and make room for new pricing models”. These trends provide flags for the logistics world of the future. Let us get prepared – both in academia and in management practice.

2014-03-20  

Logistics Performance Index 2014

Today, the World Bank has released its Logistics Performance Index 2014. The report is titled “Connecting to Compete 2014: Trade Logistics in the Global Economy”. The index, which is based on survey data collected from more than 1,000 logistics managers, allows a comparison of 160 countries in terms of trade dimensions, such as infrastructure quality, customs performance and timeliness of shipments. It is a valuable resource for researchers, business executives and politicians to analyze the current state of logistics in the world. The results of the new report “point to Germany as the best performing country with an LPI score of 4.12 […] (on a scale of 1 to 5)”. Moreover, “15 of 28 European Union (EU) member states and 23 of 34 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) members were among the top 30 countries”. The report highlights that “[s]upply chains—only as strong as their weakest links—are becoming more and more complex, often spanning many countries while remaining critical to national competitiveness”.

2013-12-02  

Delivery by Drone

Amazon is testing delivery packages using drones. Is this the future of logistics?

2013-11-19  

Logistics and Supply Chain Management in Africa

As you might know, I had the great opportunity to travel to East Africa several times, where I gave logistics and supply chain management lectures (see my previous post). In spite of a lot of desperation, I was somewhat heartened by many developments I observed. Indeed, although Africa – a continent with more than one billion people – certainly faces huge challenges, the situation is changing rapidly. In a new pwc report, Africa Gearing Up, future prospects in Africa for logistics and supply chain management are described. Herein, the authors focus their discussion on ten selected economies: Algeria, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania. They shed light on the “demographic and economic situation, the frameworks in each country for trade and business and their transport infrastructure”. This report will help companies better analyze these future markets and understand both risks and opportunities.
2013-06-19  

Trends and Strategies in Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Trends and Strategies in Logistics and Supply Chain ManagementI am excited to announce that our new study titled Trends and Strategies in Logistics and Supply Chain Management (pdf) has now been published on behalf of BVL International. It is co-authored by Robert Handfield, Frank Straube, Hans-Christian Pfohl and me. The general observation taken from 62 interviews and 1757 international survey responses is that logistics complexity in the form of fragmented channels, increased product variations, and consumer demands for customized solutions has increased. Several trends demonstrate that a number of major challenges lie ahead, as the world becomes a more complex place. We found that the major trends that will increasingly impact organizations in 5 years are network forces such as (1) customer expectations, (2) networked economy and (3) cost pressure, and external forces such as (4) globalization, (5) talent shortfalls and (6) volatility.

Handfield, R., Straube, F., Pfohl, H.-Chr. & Wieland, A. (2013). Trends and Strategies in Logistics and Supply Chain Management – Embracing Global Logistics Complexity to Drive Market Advantage. ISBN 9783871544811

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