Background: By focusing on efficiency, supply chains became increasingly extensive and complex during the past years. This led to higher vulnerability, and the COVID-19 pandemic caused an incomparable impact on global supply chains. Consequently, researchers demanded more investigation of the pandemic to prepare for future disruptions and create more resilient supply chains.   Purpose: This thesis examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on operations in supply chain management. It seeks to understand the challenges during a pandemic and acknowledge experiences to create more resilient supply chains in the future.   Method: We applied an explorative single-case study with a focus on individuals working in SCM-related departments. Therefore, we conducted semi-structured following theory-guided - and maximum-variation sampling to get a holistic view. Following an abductive approach, we constantly compared theory and empirical findings to further expand on previous theory about supply chain resilience. We also increased the validity by triangulating our findings with quantitative secondary data.   Conclusion: The results of this study show that a pandemic causes multiple reoccurring disruptions to supply chains. Companies have to react flexibly to adapt to the fast-changing environment, but the extensive supply chains hinder fast reactions. The findings of this study allow making different theoretical and managerial implications to create more resilience in supply chains to face future pandemics and other disruptions.

Small businesses create 50% of all jobs in the United States, but at least 50% of all newly founded small businesses have failed since 2006, and only 1/3 have survived beyond 10 years. Small businesses have a high chance of failure in the first 5 years due to a lack of sustainable strategies. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies small business owners need to sustain their business beyond 5 years in a purposefully chosen county in Michigan. A conceptual framework was constructed based on the stakeholder theory and its derived theories to provide a theoretical background and explore the sustainable business strategies used by the owners. Five small restaurant business owners who sustained their businesses for at least 5 years were purposely sampled. Data were collected via semistructured interviews and member checking was used to ensure the participants concurred with all transcripts; and triangulation was used to analyze a combination of synthesized interview data, reflective interview notes, and business financial documents. Computer software was used to analyze the data and to generate themes with their categories from the data automatically. From the data analysis, 4 themes emerged from the triangulated and analyzed data associated with small restaurant sustainability. The 4 emergent themes were that education enhanced owners' strategies and sustainability, personal traits drove owners to their business success, marketing and seasonal strategies assisted them in strategic planning and brand building, and business growth strategies assisted them in innovation and environmental management. The success of small businesses can generate jobs, stimulate the economy, and increase domestic and government revenue.

This paper is directed at discussing some of the management issues, problems and solutions of logistics in the context of offshored productive activities The introduction includes a discussion of the logistics topics and an introduction of the economic logic of offshoring. The main part analyses the logistics topics with regard to the internationally fragmented production. The topics of logistics include: Information flow and integration, transportation, inventory management, warehousing and materials management, packaging management, customer service, risk management, logistics strategies and supply chain design. For each of the discussed topics a company or industry example is given to illustrate the applications. The analysis is based on a review of the existing academic literature in each of these fields.

Global supply chains (GSCs) are formed with the primary objective of cost minimization. Apart from cost reductions, GSCs also have other benefits like opening up new markets, reduction in the price of the product sold, and increasing production capacity. The benefits of GSCs are significant only when the environment it works in is stable. But in real life, almost all the systems are stochastic. While companies try to globalize their supply chains (SC), it is important to understand and evaluate the risks associated with global expansion. Several risk events arise in global supply chains and efficient management of these probable risk events plays a crucial role. Supply chain risk management (SCRM) is the implementation of strategies to manage both everyday and exceptional risks along the SCs based on continuous risk assessment to reduce vulnerability and ensure continuity. But there is a need to differentiate risk management of domestic and global supply chains due to additional risk elements involved in the functioning of GSCs. COVID-19 pandemic is one such risk event that has disrupted the GSCs of many companies around the world. Hence, the purpose of this study is to examine whether the framework of risk management in global supply chains needs reviewing after the manifestation of the COVID-19 pandemic. To fulfill the purpose, the study is divided into 2 sections. A literature review is done in supply chain management, supply chain risk management using the keywords mentioned below. Interviews were conducted with companies having GSCs. The interviews help in primary data collection for understanding the impact of COVID-19 on GSCs. Questions regarding company background, strategy for RM, the impact of COVID-19 on the GSC, and previous catastrophic impacts & future plans were asked. The collected data is processed and analyzed to arrive at findings. These findings are compared with theory to conclude by answering the research questions.  The findings prove that the existing risk management (RM) framework is sufficient to handle risk events such as pandemics. The benefits of implementing risk monitoring are visible with the comparison of the impact of RM strategies prior to and during the pandemic. Disruptive events such as COVID-19 cannot be completely avoided but can be mitigated. Several risk types occur due to catastrophic events as risk types are interconnected. Hence, all risk types must be evaluated for the RM plan. The impact is also dependent on local restrictions. Hence, it should also be considered in RM plans. Coordination mechanisms and robust strategies have shown that resiliency and flexibility improve and have reduced the impact of COVID-19 both proactively and reactively. So, it shows that the existing RM framework has the capability of mitigating the impacts of future pandemics and does not require updating.

Em um cenário de aumento de competitividade, crescente expectativa por inovações do produto e necessidade de atender diferentes perfis de consumidores, o conceito de gerenciamento de cadeias de suprimentos globais (GSCM) surge como uma estratégia para coordenar mais eficazmente as atividades dispersas geograficamente dos sistemas produtivos. Na adoção do GSCM, as organizações devem lidar com rupturas que impactam no gerenciamento das suas atividades, tais como a interrupção de vias de transporte, pane no fornecimento de energia, desastres naturais e até ataques terroristas. Nesse contexto, o trabalho introduz um procedimento sistematizado para modelagem das cadeias de suprimentos visto como um sistema a eventos discretos e sua análise por simulação das atividades do GSCM baseada em técnicas formais como a rede de Petri (PN) e o Production Flow Schema (PFS). Um exemplo é também apresentado para ilustrar e comprovar as vantagens do método proposto na análise do GSCM. / In a context of increasing competition, rising of expectations for product innovations and need to satisfy different consumer needs, the concept of global supply chain management (GSCM) emerges as a strategy to more efficiently coordinate the geographically dispersed activities of production systems. Adopting GSCM, organizations have to deal with external disruptions that impact management activities, such as transport interruption, power supply failure, natural disasters and terrorist attacks. In this way, a systematized procedure for modeling supply chains as a discrete event system and simulation analysis of GSCM activities based on formal techniques, such as Petri net (PN) and Production Flow Schema (PFS) is introduced. An example is also presented to illustrate and confirm the advantages of the proposed method for GSCM analysis.

Em um cenário de aumento de competitividade, crescente expectativa por inovações do produto e necessidade de atender diferentes perfis de consumidores, o conceito de gerenciamento de cadeias de suprimentos globais (GSCM) surge como uma estratégia para coordenar mais eficazmente as atividades dispersas geograficamente dos sistemas produtivos. Na adoção do GSCM, as organizações devem lidar com rupturas que impactam no gerenciamento das suas atividades, tais como a interrupção de vias de transporte, pane no fornecimento de energia, desastres naturais e até ataques terroristas. Nesse contexto, o trabalho introduz um procedimento sistematizado para modelagem das cadeias de suprimentos visto como um sistema a eventos discretos e sua análise por simulação das atividades do GSCM baseada em técnicas formais como a rede de Petri (PN) e o Production Flow Schema (PFS). Um exemplo é também apresentado para ilustrar e comprovar as vantagens do método proposto na análise do GSCM. / In a context of increasing competition, rising of expectations for product innovations and need to satisfy different consumer needs, the concept of global supply chain management (GSCM) emerges as a strategy to more efficiently coordinate the geographically dispersed activities of production systems. Adopting GSCM, organizations have to deal with external disruptions that impact management activities, such as transport interruption, power supply failure, natural disasters and terrorist attacks. In this way, a systematized procedure for modeling supply chains as a discrete event system and simulation analysis of GSCM activities based on formal techniques, such as Petri net (PN) and Production Flow Schema (PFS) is introduced. An example is also presented to illustrate and confirm the advantages of the proposed method for GSCM analysis.