Business Commons^™

From Space To Ground Zero: The Application Of Geographic Information Systems And Rocket Cargo Transportation To Disaster Management Operations, Sarah Stout

Senior Honors Theses

This paper provides an overview of the application of space-based technologies, specifically Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology and rocket cargo launches, to disaster management operations. GIS links data from satellites, remote sensing, and other sources to dashboards, allowing relief teams to monitor relevant demographic, environmental, and disaster details. This information supports multiple aspects of planning and decision-making in the preparedness, response, and relief stages of the disaster management cycle. Rocket cargo transportation, an emerging method of shipping supplies, will allow for supplies to be shipped anywhere in the world in under twenty-four hours. This can be used in a future …

Britain’S Tea Shortage Scare A Sign Of Trouble Brewing, Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos, Sarah Schiffling

Articles

The Red Sea supply chain crisis has exposed glaring weaknesses in global transport that pose big questions about how our economy will work moving forward.

The Electric Vehicle Supply Chain Ecosystem: Changing Roles Of Automotive Suppliers, Sandeep Jagani, Erika Marsillac, Paul Hong

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

The automotive industry is evolving due to the increasing adoption of Electric Vehicles (EVs). This transition has impacted automotive vehicles and led to profound changes in the supply chain ecosystem. Through a comprehensive review of the available literature and industry reports, this research investigates the automotive industry’s transition towards EVs and subsequent supply chain transformation, focusing on the changing roles of automotive suppliers. In this paper, we assess these transformations from economic, environmental, and strategic viewpoints. We examine the impact of these changes on supplier relationships, supplier OEM collaboration, and new entrants’ potential for disruption, as well as propose strategies …

Humanitarian Awards Impact On For-Profit Companies: A Case Analysis Of The American Logistics Aid Network's Awards, Chloe Hansberger

Supply Chain Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

Beginning in 2017, American Logistics Aid Network has given out annual awards to for-profit companies recognizing their achievements in humanitarian aid. The Outstanding Contribution to Disaster Relief Award is recognition-based only and does not have any prize money associated with it. The degree of the awards’ effectiveness has been a subject much debated in scholarship. This research attempts to answer how the American Logistics Aid Network’s Outstanding Contribution to Disaster Relief Award affects the recipients financially. In particular, the research was designed to look at how the American Logistics Aid Network’s Outstanding Contribution to Disaster Relief Award affected the profit, …

A Guide To Controlling Supply Chain Last Mile And Reverse Last-Mile Logistics: A Study Of U.S. And China Small Business Enterprises, Emmanuel Finnih

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2023

In the United States, the last-mile logistics infrastructure is less developed, with fewer delivery services and less efficient delivery methods. China has adopted more advanced technologies such as drones and robots for last-mile delivery, while the United States has lagged behind in this area (Zhang and Zhang, 2020). Finally, in terms of delivery methods, China has adopted more efficient methods such as same-day delivery and express delivery, while the United States has been relatively slow to adopt these methods, with many retailers still relying on traditional delivery methods like ground shipping. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of …

Transportation Managers’ Perceptions Of The Diffusion Of Innovation Within Logistics Clusters, Stephen Mcdonald Puryear

Dissertations

The human capital capacity for innovation is crucial for business success. Cluster theory posits that this capacity for innovation is enhanced by industrial clustering geographic proximity. The innovative capacity is expected to be facilitated by institutions for collaboration, informal knowledge flow, short feedback loops, and collective action regimes. Research on logistics clustering has supported this supposition. Still, no research has explicitly examined whether being physically located in a logistics cluster enhances a company’s human capital capacity for innovation.

This study uses the Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach to determine the innovative operational processes involved in the diffusion of innovation within …

Logistics Leader Strategies For Retaining Employees, Sandra Northern

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Low employee retention can lead to a lack of the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for sustainable logistics operations. Logistics leaders are concerned with employee retention because turnover increases business costs, reduces operational efficiency, and decreases profitability. Grounded in Herzberg’s two-factor theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies logistics leaders use to increase employee retention. The participants were three senior leaders from a logistics organization in the northeast region of the United States who possessed knowledge and experience of the research phenomena. Data were collected through semistructured interviews, company documents, publicly available data, and …

Logistics Leader Strategies For Retaining Employees, Sandra Northern

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Low employee retention can lead to a lack of the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for sustainable logistics operations. Logistics leaders are concerned with employee retention because turnover increases business costs, reduces operational efficiency, and decreases profitability. Grounded in Herzberg’s two-factor theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies logistics leaders use to increase employee retention. The participants were three senior leaders from a logistics organization in the northeast region of the United States who possessed knowledge and experience of the research phenomena. Data were collected through semistructured interviews, company documents, publicly available data, and …

Fedex Ground Strategic Audit, Samantha Gates

Honors Theses

FedEx Ground is an operating segment of the parcel carrier giant FedEx Inc. The company, known for shipping products via delivery truck, has remained one of the largest parcel carriers in the country, despite drastic changes in its environment. This report seeks to understand the changing operating environment of FedEx Ground, its competitive advantages, and the future challenges it may face. The analysis uses PESTEL and Porter's Five Forces analyses to evaluate the changing external environment and industry FedEx Ground operates in. Additionally, challenges and recommendations are offered to navigate the future of this company.

Lessons Learned: Simon Potter, Maryann Haggerty

Journal of Financial Crises

Simon Potter, an economist, worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for more than two decades. Leading up to the Global Financial Crisis, he was the New York Fed’s associate director of economic research; in 2010, he became director. In 2012, he shifted to become the head of the markets group, putting him at the helm of the Fed’s open markets operations, the mechanism by which the central bank steers monetary policy and interest rates. He moved to the private sector in 2019. For this April 2021 Lessons Learned interview, he emphasized that these are his personal opinions, …

An Evaluation Of Ireland’S Sustainable Freight Transport Policy, Xu Zhang, Eoin Plant, Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos

Articles

Background: The Irish government has put forth sustainable transport policy measures, yet the emphasis is mainly on the active travel and sustainable mobility for passenger transport. Contrariwise, freight transport has not received equal consideration in policy measures, regulatory frameworks, and support schemes towards the low-carbon transition. This study seeks to address this imbalance. Methods: The paper proposes an adaptation of the ASI framework for freight transport and assesses the applicability of a number of international sustainable transport measures based on their potential sustainability impact if adopted in Ireland. The research applied a Policy Delphi Method to a heterogeneous …

The Rise Of Blockchain Technology In Businesses, Haiqiang Chen

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

A blockchain is a digitally distributed and decentralized ledger of all transactions across a peer-to-peer network. Using this technology, transaction participants can confirm transactions without a need for a central clearing authority, making the technology a legitimate disruptor for fields like contracts, financing, and supply chain. Benefits of blockchain technology include immutability, efficiencies, and decentralization.

This project poster studied how blockchain technology influences supply chain, logistics, and supply chain finance through case studies. Particularly, this project examined Walmart's 2016 pork pilot program launch, the Haikou and Sanya Port hub in China, and the "We Chain" financing system in Tencent company.

Determinants For The Uptake Of Alternatively Fuelled Hgvs: Towards A Maturity Framework, Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos, Xu Zhang

Conference Papers

Purpose of this paper: Alternatively fuelled vehicles (AFVs) have received increasing attention from policy makers and industry practitioners because they are perceived as a silver bullet for decarbonising freight transport (Mohammed et al., 2020; ITF 2021). However, the uptake rate of AFVs by heavy goods vehicle (HGV) freight operators in Europe remains low. With 97.8% of all trucks in the EU running on diesel, only 0.04% of trucks are zero-emission vehicles (ACEA, 2021). Price, technology maturity, infrastructure, and government policy support are factors examined by freight transport operators who consider the switch to AFVs as a low-carbon option (Mohammed et …

Mitigating Supply Chain Disruptions, Risks, And Vulnerabilities, John Jeong Kim

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The global supply chain has made numerous incredible strides in improving processes to keep the supply chain functional. However, supply chain businesses suffer disruptions from many different factors, which impact the supply chain businesses and customers. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand the various ways the supply chain industry incurs disruption from the lack of enhanced security and the development of potential ideas on how disruptions receive mitigation. The background of the issue was researched, followed by the interview of eleven high-level supply chain managers and employees to obtain data for understanding the factors that contribute …

Technology Innovation Strategies Supply Chain Managers Adopt To Improve Product Marketing And Profitability, George Richard Rapciewicz Jr.

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Improperly planned capital investments in new technologies could result in lost productivity for e-procurement and supply chain managers in the e-commerce industries. Grounded in the technology acceptance model, the qualitative multiple case study design was used to explore strategies business managers use to adopt technology innovations to improve product marketing and profitability. Participants were five supply chain business managers and owners from five separate organizations in the southwestern region of the United States. Data were collected via responses submitted through Google Forms and emails, written logs, telephone calls, and recorded audio. Thematic analysis resulted in two key themes: perceived ease …

Optimization Of Lean And Agile Supply Chain Management Practices In The Aviation Industry, Constantine M. Koursaris, Valerie P. Denney

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Organizations that provide products and/or services must be able to execute fast, adaptive supply and (fluctuating) demand practices. From producers to consumers, and every stakeholder involved throughout the supply chain network processes, a collaborative relationship promotes sharing information that is beneficial to all. This long-term relationship then flourishes and in return stimulates the growth, health, and stability of the supply chain. Understanding the organizational processes and requirements is a complex endeavor. However, with technological advances and with the right type of data collected, it is possible to optimize entire supply chain networks.

This research study, seeks to provide an insight …

Containing Compounding Container Congestion, Curtis Salinger

CMC Senior Theses

The Covid-19 pandemic caused major disruptions throughout the container shipping supply chain. Professor Dongping Song of Liverpool University wrote a paper discussing the logistical vulnerabilities in the supply chain, including the issue of congestion in ports. This paper examines the Port of Los Angeles from 2018-2021 as it relates to Song’s paper to see how its operations were impacted during the Covid-19 timeframe. It is found that labor shortages, chassis shortages, and change in trade behavior each contributed to the congestion. Unfortunately, the implemented policies were insufficient to bolster the port against sustained challenges and congestion continues to worsen.

Dark Side Of Black Friday: The Major Drawbacks With This Shopping Bonanza, Sarah Schiffling, Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos

Articles

Black Friday is upon us again. It’s one of the biggest shopping events of the year, although there are mixed signals about how successful it is likely to be in 2021. One recent study found that only a third of consumers plan to take part. The financial strain of COVID-19 is still evident, and inflation running at its highest level in a decade.

All the same, consumer confidence has been rising. According to GlobalData, shoppers are set to spend nearly £9.2 billion in the four days from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. This would still be a big increase …

Sherman And His Historians: An End To The Outsized Destroyer Myth?, Mitchell G. Klingenberg

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

For years, scholars have viewed the career of William Tecumseh Sherman in light of an antiquated destroyer myth and neglected his memoirs, which were written as a military textbook. This essay reviews Sherman’s legacy and literature, both of which contributed to the advancement of modern military thought. His experiences may serve as a prescriptive text to servicemembers, providing critical lessons on military warfare and philosophy still relevant today.

Logistics Outsourcing In Large Manufacturing Companies: The Case Of Slovenia And Lessons From Other Countries, Marko Budler, Marko Jakšič, Teja Vilfan

Economic and Business Review

Logistics outsourcing is a mode of operation for companies in global supply chains that have been increasingly devoting more attention to their core activities. This study examines the state-of-the-art in logistics outsourcing in the Slovenian manufacturing industry. Additionally, the authors benchmark the findings against a similar study from 2013. Finally, this study provides a discussion of logistics-outsourcing specifics in some countries with the use of secondary data. We identify transportation as a top-ranked logistics activity, and a general propensity for higher-level logistics outsourcing (e.g. 4PL). The authors contribute to the supply-chain management society by identifying the drivers of, barriers to, …

Humanitarian Supply Chain & Logistics Aid Management At Global Relief Services, Christine Schrage, Daniel Bumblauskas, Bennett Becicka

Journal of Business & Entrepreneurship

Global Relief Services is working with a world-renowned international consulting firm on a site location strategy. The consulting firm, ABC Inc., had previously supported the United Nations (UN) on multiple crisis situations over the past ten years and has experience assisting with site location decisions in the past. The GRS team, assisted by the logistics team of ABC Inc., will determine an optimal site(s) for warehousing supplies in areas distant from vendor donors. Students’ recommendations should include the optimal site location and resource allocation strategy and planning.

Tdabc Capabilities For Performance Measurement: A Case Study In A Manufacturing Context, Siham Rahoui, Abubakar Ali, John Crowe, Amr Mahfouz

Conference papers

Supply chain costing presents a sophisticated alternative to traditional costing allowing an accurate cost estimation and effective decision making. In exploring different techniques, TDABC was not explored extensively compared to its peers. In addition to the infancy of the technique, there is an on-going debate about the capability of the TDABC specifically in manufacturing context. The present study contributes to the debate by applying TDABC at the logistics function of a manufacturing site and assesses it capability to measure performance in the stated context.

Greening E-Commerce In China, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics arm, is leading the charge to address e-commerce’s waste and carbon footprint issue

Building A Courier Service Company With It, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

XDel Singapore spent on sophisticated technology even while it was small. Its growth post-investment looks like money well-spent

An Empirical Analysis Of Factors Affecting Autonomous Truck Adoption, Christopher Mondy

Dissertations

Autonomous vehicles have the potential to revolutionize the transportation industry. The segment of truck transportation is no exception. Autonomous vehicles have the potential to improve trucking safety, to increase shipping velocity, and to decrease costs. Additionally, autonomous trucks could be an important tool to help alleviate the ongoing driver shortage that the trucking industry is contending with.

Autonomous truck adoption is not guaranteed. Transportation equipment decisions are market-based, and autonomous trucks must present a compelling business case to transportation professionals. As such, it is imperative to understand the decision-making factors that drive transportation solution adoption, and how autonomous trucks could …

The Five Essential Building Blocks To Becoming A Top Twenty-Five Supply Chain Program, Phillip Necessary

Supply Chain Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

The overall intention of this research is to develop aspiring programs to reevaluate their institutions and begin growing their program with lessons from other leading institutions—the more comprehensive, educated, and driven students in the Supply Chain industry, the better.

The Supply Chain Management sector has grown substantially in the last fifteen to twenty years; the current placement rate of undergraduates is eighty-five to one hundred percent after graduation (Damast, 2015). This phenomenon correlates with international and domestic interest in information technology, economic dynamics, flexibility, and product availability, all of which have grown industry demand (Rob O'Byrne, 2020). In the last …

Effects Of A Pandemic On Supply Chain Networks, Richard Mankavech

Senior Honors Projects

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had a colossal impact on the lives of people across the globe. Just like the lives of the people who have had to live through this pandemic, supply chains around the world have been disrupted and permanently changed as well. 94% of Fortune 1000 companies have experienced supply chain disruptions as a result of COVID-19. The effects of the pandemic on global supply chains has not gone unnoticed, as many people had to make adjustments in their shopping to account for items that are always expected to be available suddenly not being able to be …

Liu, Lee, Jiao, And Wang, Contemporary Logistics In China: An Introduction (2011), Qing Lu

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

The Complex Challenges Of Protecting Consumers, Deniz Atik, Nikhilesh Dholakia

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Aligning Performance Management Systems For Lasting Outcomes In Humanitarian Operations, Kalyn M. Howard

Theses and Dissertations

Logistics is dynamic, expansive, and critical to organizational success. While it is generally believed that effective logistics management is associated with positive performance outcomes, the links between organizational practice and performance are understudied. This dissertation leverages resource-based theory and organizational learning theory to examine organizational practice and performance in non-traditional logistics settings, with particular focus on military organizations and humanitarian operational settings. First, a meta-analytical study establishes generalizable associations between various operations management practices and performance outcomes. Then, this is applied to dynamic humanitarian logistics settings, exploring how practitioners perceive practice and performance, and how this is reported and documented …