Abstract: Global supply chains (GSCs) are transforming the world. This paper explores why they emerged, why they are significant and future directions they are likely to take along with some implications for policy. After putting global supply chains into an historical perspective, the paper presents an economic framework for understanding the functional and geographical unbundling of production. The fundamental trade off in supply chain fractionalisation is between specialisation gains and coordination costs. The key trade-off in supply chain dispersion is between dispersion and agglomeration forces. Supply-chain trade should be not viewed as standard trade in parts and components rather than final goods. Production sharing has linked cross-border flows of goods, investment, services, know-how and people in novel ways. The paper suggest that future of global supply chains will be influenced by: 1) improvements in coordination technology that lowers the cost of functional and geographical unbundling, 2) improvements in computer integrated manufacturing that lowers the benefits of specialisation and shifts stages toward greater skill-, capital, and technology-intensity, 3) narrowing of wage gaps that reduces the benefit of North-South offshoring to nations like China, and 4) the price of oil that raises the cost of unbundling.

Abstract: As the service sector expands into the global economy, a new science of service is emerging, one that is dedicated to encouraging service innovation by applying scientific understanding, engineering discipline, and management practice to designing, improving, and scaling service systems Handbook of Service Science takes the first major steps to clarifying the definition, role, and future of this nascent field Incorporating work by scholars from across the spectrum of service research, the volume presents multidisciplinary perspectives on the nature and theory of service, on current research and practice in design, operations, delivery, and innovation of service, and on future opportunities and potential of service research Handbook of Service Science provides a comprehensive reference suitable for a wide-reaching audience including researchers, practitioners, managers, and students who aspire to learn about or to create a deeper scientific foundation for service design and engineering, service experience and marketing, and service management and innovation

Abstract: The risk thematic is not new in management, but it is a recent and growing subject in supply chain management. Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) plays a major role in successfully managing business processes in a proactive manner. Supply chain risk has multiple sources including process, control, demand, supply and environment. Supply chain management, faced with these risks, requires specific and adequate responses such as techniques, attitude and strategies for management of risk. This paper is based on an empirical study of 142 general managers and logistics and supply chain managers in 50 different French companies. It demonstrates that for organizations to be effective, SCRM must be a management function that is inter-organizational in nature and closely related to strategic and operational realities of the activity in question. Moreover, the findings of our empirical study suggest that effective SCRM is based on collaboration (collaborative meetings, timely and relevant information exchanges) and the establishment of joint and common transverse processes with industrial partners.

Abstract: In modern business environments, an effective supply chain management (SCM) is crucial to business continuity. Competition between supply chains (SC) has replaced the traditional competition between companies. Lean, Agile, Resilient and Green (LARG) paradigms are advocated as the foundation of a competitive SCM. To make a supply chain more competitive, capable of responding to the demands of customers with agility and capable of responding effectively to unexpected disturbance, in conjugation with environmental responsibilities and the necessity to eliminate processes that add no value, companies must implement a set of LARG SCM practices and key performance indicators (KPI) to measure their influence on the SC performance. However, the selection of the best LARG SCM practices and KPIs is a complex problem, involving dependencies and feedbacks. This paper proposes an integrated LARG analytic network process (ANP) model to support decision-making in choosing the most appropriate practices and KPIs to be im...

Abstract: Many companies are not dramatically changing to more sustainable environmental practices despite pressure from the investment community, the government and consumers. This study explores a simple model that companies can use to understand and improve supply chain sustainability practices. It applies this model in two case studies, Coca-Cola, a leader in global sustainability, and Apple, a company that has only recently started to develop a sustainability strategy. The model was developed through a review of existing research and an application of supply chain principles. The results of this study demonstrate that following this model to eliminate waste throughout the supply chain will make the supply chain more profitable. The outcomes from this study highlight the importance for every company to do so in order to stay competitive. This study is unique in the relative simplicity of its model, combined with the supporting evidence that a sustainable supply chain is the same as a supply chain that is using ...

Abstract: Supply chain management must adopt different and more innovative strategies that support a better response to customer needs in an uncertain environment. Supply chains must be more agile and be more capable of coping with disturbances, meaning that supply chains must be more resilient. The simultaneous deployment of agile and resilient approaches will enhance supply chain performance and competitiveness. Accordingly, the main objective of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework for the analysis of relationships between agile and resilient approaches, supply chain competitiveness and performance. Operational and economic performance measures are proposed to facilitate the monitoring of the influence of these practices on supply chain performance. The influence of the proposed agile and resilient practices on supply chain competitiveness is also examined in terms of time to market, product quality and customer service.

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of supply chain integration in different contexts. More specifically, it aims to show that supply chain integration is only effective in buyer‐supplier relationships characterised by high supply complexity.Design/methodology/approach – A survey‐based research design is developed to measure different dimensions or aspects of supply chain integration and supply complexity. Data were collected among manufacturers in The Netherlands and Spain.Findings – This research shows that supply chain integration increases performance if supply complexity is high, while a very limited or no influence of supply chain integration can be detected in case of low supply complexity. The results also show that in high supply complexity environments the use of structured communication means to achieve supply chain integration has a negative effect on cost performance.Research limitations/implications – The limited sample size prohibits estimating and testin...

Abstract: Cloud computing systems promise to offer subscription-oriented, enterprise-quality computing services to users worldwide. With the increased demand for delivering services to a large number of users, they need to offer differentiated services to users and meet their quality expectations. Existing resource management systems in data centers are yet to support Service Level Agreement (SLA)-oriented resource allocation, and thus need to be enhanced to realize cloud computing and utility computing. In addition, no work has been done to collectively incorporate customer-driven service management, computational risk management, and autonomic resource management into a market-based resource management system to target the rapidly changing enterprise requirements of Cloud computing. This paper presents vision, challenges, and architectural elements of SLA-oriented resource management. The proposed architecture supports integration of marketbased provisioning policies and virtualisation technologies for flexible allocation of resources to applications. The performance results obtained from our working prototype system shows the feasibility and effectiveness of SLA-based resource provisioning in Clouds.

Abstract: Extended producer responsibility (EPR) programs typically hold the producer—a single actor defined by the regulator—responsible for the environmental impacts of end-of-life products. This is despite emphasis on the need to involve all actors in the supply chain in order to best achieve the aims of EPR. In this paper, we examine the economic and environmental implications of product recovery mandates and shared responsibility within a supply chain. We use a two-echelon model consisting of a supplier and a manufacturer to determine the impacts of product collection and recycling mandates on the incentive to recycle and resulting profits in the integrated and decentralized supply chains. For the decentralized supply chain, we demonstrate how the sharing of responsibility for product recovery between the echelons can improve total supply chain profit and suggest a contract menu that can Pareto-improve profits. To examine both the economic and environmental performance associated with responsibility sharing, we propose a social welfare construct that includes supply chain profit, consumer surplus, and the externalities associated with virgin material extraction, product consumption, and disposal of nonrecycled products. Using a numerical example, we discuss how responsibility sharing may or may not improve social welfare. The results of this paper are of value to firms either anticipating or subject to product recovery legislation, and to social planners that attempt to balance economic and environmental impacts and ensure fairness of such legislation.

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is two‐fold: to examine two approaches buying firms can utilize to manage supplier quality; and to investigate the ways in which factors inherent in supply chain relationships affect the use of these approaches in supply chain quality management.Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on agency theory, this paper proposes a conceptual framework that relates the underlying factors of a supply chain relationship to the use of quality management approaches. Two types of approaches, outcome‐based and behavior‐based, are discussed in terms of their focuses, purposes, and methods. Propositions are developed about the effects of these factors on the decisions buying firms make about supply chain quality management.Findings – This study suggests that rather than relying on one generic supply chain quality management approach for all suppliers, firms need to choose different management mechanisms for different suppliers based on the salient attributes of individual suppliers and t...

Abstract: Service operations management (SOM) has a rich history of important but not widely recognized contributions to research and practice. There also seems to be some uncertainty about how SOM fits in the broader fields of operations management and service management. This article addresses those concerns by introducing a visual framework called Process-Chain-Network (PCN) Analysis. The framework is built upon PCN Diagrams that depict processes and interactions involving networks of entities. PCN Analysis includes identifying the value proposition of a given process network, assessing performance characteristics and value propositions of a process configuration, and identifying opportunities for process improvement and innovation. The PCN framework clarifies fundamental concepts of SOM, demonstrates how SOM fits in broader contexts of business management, illuminates managerial insights of SOM and related disciplines, and provides a basis for future SOM research.

Abstract: The basic idea behind cloud computing is that resource providers offer elastic resources to end users. In this paper, we intend to answer one key question to the success of cloud computing: in cloud, can small-to-medium scale scientific communities benefit from the economies of scale? Our research contributions are threefold: first, we propose an innovative public cloud usage model for small-to-medium scale scientific communities to utilize elastic resources on a public cloud site while maintaining their flexible system controls, i.e., create, activate, suspend, resume, deactivate, and destroy their high-level management entities-service management layers without knowing the details of management. Second, we design and implement an innovative system-DawningCloud, at the core of which are lightweight service management layers running on top of a common management service framework. The common management service framework of DawningCloud not only facilitates building lightweight service management layers for heterogeneous workloads, but also makes their management tasks simple. Third, we evaluate the systems comprehensively using both emulation and real experiments. We found that for four traces of two typical scientific workloads: High-Throughput Computing (HTC) and Many-Task Computing (MTC), DawningCloud saves the resource consumption maximally by 59.5 and 72.6 percent for HTC and MTC service providers, respectively, and saves the total resource consumption maximally by 54 percent for the resource provider with respect to the previous two public cloud solutions. To this end, we conclude that small-to-medium scale scientific communities indeed can benefit from the economies of scale of public clouds with the support of the enabling system.

Abstract: This paper explores why firms should include sustainable development considerations in supply chains as a means of improving social and environmental impacts of production systems. The recognition of financial, social and environmental elements however creates greater complexity, which makes optimisation approaches to sustainable supply chain problems infeasible. We frame our analysis using Kauffman's (1993) NK theory, with interactions among financial, social and environmental elements identified through empirical research conducted in Brazilian oil and gas, sugarcane ethanol and biodiesel supply chains. We use a matrix of interactions (Baldwin and Clark 1999) as a template, allowing for the identification of key financial, social and environmental elements and their interconnections within and between supply chains. We contribute by arguing that firms focusing on individual sustainable development elements independently are unlikely to find satisfactory solutions to their sustainable supply chain proble...

Abstract: This paper addresses decision making in the management of complex service systems, highlighting the contribution of the viable systems approach as an interpretative and governance methodology based on systems thinking. In the last few decades, business management has undergone significant changes due to rapid developments in markets. New competitive strategies and technologies have stimulated global discussion about business models and tools (Ghoshal, 2005). The role of relationships has become increasingly relevant in businesses, and researchers as well as industries are shifting their focus to a service-oriented approach, moving from a paradigm of product to one of service (IfM-IBM Cambridge SSME Report, 2008).

Abstract: Cloud computing is a promising paradigm for the provisioning of IT services. Cloud computing infrastructures, such as those offered by the RESERVOIR project, aim to facilitate the deployment, management and execution of services across multiple physical locations in a seamless manner. In order for service providers to meet their quality of service objectives, it is important to examine how software architectures can be described to take full advantage of the capabilities introduced by such platforms. When dealing with software systems involving numerous loosely coupled components, architectural constraints need to be made explicit to ensure continuous operation when allocating and migrating services from one host in the Cloud to another. In addition, the need for optimising resources and minimising over-provisioning requires service providers to control the dynamic adjustment of capacity throughout the entire service lifecycle. We discuss the implications for software architecture definitions of distributed applications that are to be deployed on Clouds. In particular, we identify novel primitives to support service elasticity, co-location and other requirements, propose language abstractions for these primitives and define their behavioural semantics precisely by establishing constraints on the relationship between architecture definitions and Cloud management infrastructures using a model denotational approach in order to derive appropriate service management cycles. Using these primitives and semantic definition as a basis, we define a service management framework implementation that supports on demand cloud provisioning and present a novel monitoring framework that meets the demands of Cloud based applications.