Disruptions in the supply chain are becoming more common as supply chains become more complex, and supply chain managers of warehouse distribution centers need strategies to minimize the impact of disruptions. In this study, the focus of the research questions was on strategies supply chain managers could use to mitigate the impact of disruptions. The conceptual frameworks for this study were the resource dependence theory and the normal accident theory, which link supply chain disruptions with resource availability and the inability to eliminate disruptions. An exploratory case study involved exploring how supply chain managers of a warehouse distribution center in Jacksonville, Florida, successfully used strategies to mitigate the impact of a disruption after it occurred. Data came from responses to semistructured interview questions from these managers (n = 6) and archival documents related to policies, procedures, and business continuity planning of a warehouse distribution center in Jacksonville, Florida. I analyzed the data by using Atlas.ti qualitative analysis software. There were 6 themes that emerged: collaborating to minimize the impact of disruptions, disruptions precursors, identifying and assessing impact of disruptions, resources used to minimize impact of disruption, strategies to mitigate disruptions, and supplier relationships. The results could contribute to social change by minimizing the negative effects disruptions have on an organization's profitability and performance. Social change can come from business leaders who are able to maintain and sustain their businesses after a supply chain disruption has occurred.

Master of Science / Department of Psychological Sciences / Michael E. Young / Although risky decision-making tasks present some a priori risk (i.e., base-rate), decision makers often have an opportunity to modify this level of risk through their behaviors. Broadly speaking, risk can be modified by assigning additional resources to an ongoing task or by engaging in specific risk-mitigation strategies before or after the risky decision is made. The modification of risk requires ongoing awareness of task demands, resource constraints, and risk-mitigation strategies that can be used to adapt behavior over time. This thesis explores risk modification that occurs during difficult tasks. Difficult tasks hold greater risks because they fall at the edge of the decision maker’s abilities and are likely to require a greater number of resources to overcome. As resources are engaged they become unavailable for other tasks or strategies to cope with changing task demands. I studied how individuals monitor risks and develop risk mitigation strategies using a videogame task designed to mirror contingencies that would be encountered in the real world. Results from two experiments that involve this task suggest that decision-makers adequately monitor and develop active strategies for dealing with risks. These strategies change over time and vary as a function of task difficulty and experience.

This dissertation builds upon previous Magdalenian research to reframe a logistical subsistence posture as an active risk-mitigation structure premised upon ensuring predictable surplus economic production at the French Upper Paleolithic site of Verberie le Buisson Campin (hereinafter VBC). Using a detailed faunal and statistical analysis of two faunal datasets to assess taphonomically the role of bone density-mediated vs. anthropogenic taphonomic agencies, this research also correlates bone survivorship with both limb element marrow cavity volume and the meat drying index. A limited program of bone refits attempted to provide evidence for the distribution of meat at the site. Age profiles generated from dental crown height measurements provide strong evidence that younger, perhaps more nutritious and valuable, carcasses were treated quite differently than were geriatric carcasses. There also appears to be a spatial component to the differential age-mediated treatment of reindeer carcasses at VBC. In essence, it appears that seasonal reindeer hunts at VBC were concerned with two eventualities: 1) the attainment of predictable and adequate nutrition for provisioning over winter, and 2) seeking to balance adequate nutrition with future reindeer herd viability. It appears that Magdalenian hunters essentially held young/prime prey targets as an independent variable, and treated the presence of geriatric, elder reindeer herd members as a dependent variable in meeting subsistence needs. Perhaps lower numbers of more nutritious (i.e., containing more and better quality fat reserves in meat and marrow) young/prime animals resulted in taking greater numbers of elderly reindeer to offset potential shortfall; in more abundant times, so long as herd viability could be maintained, greater numbers of more valuable young/prime would be taken along with lower numbers of geriatric reindeer. The fulcrum point of this subsistence balance appears to have been a very active, real-time process of prey item evaluation. Not all animals are equal in nutritional terms hence not all carcasses are evaluated equally. A Ground-penetrating radar study is also included to answer two substantive questions: 1) How representative of the entire site assemblage is the currently excavated sample?; and 2) Are there data visible that are indicative of multiple, interacting "households" as at Pincevent, or does the material scale, configuration, and distribution appear limited to a single household? GPR has proven to be a highly informative and productive near-surface geophysical technique for investigating many archaeological sites, and this research details one of the earliest such applications in a Paleolithic open-air context. At VBC, GPR was highly effective in locating anthropogenic accumulations of unexcavated archaeological materials which were field-tested through excavations during the 2009 field season.

This thesis proposes a classification system of risk mitigation strategies based on literature search and industry interviews. Following that, a list of generic properties was generated to describe individual strategies. In parallel, populating the properties of a large number of identified strategies was attempted. The practical implications are discussed mainly focusing on knowledge management for risk mitigation strategies.

This dissertation develops contributions in the area of supply chain risk assessment and mitigation. In each of the three main chapters, we present and analyze a risk assessment or mitigation problem for supply chains. The first problem is to assess the impact of infrastructure disruptions on supply chain performance; the second problem is to develop an operational control approach to mitigate risks posed by uncertain events that disrupt network synchronization; and the third problem is to analyze the risk posed by an adversary seeking to use a supply chain as a weapon. Chapter II presents a methodology for assessing the excess supply chain costs that arise from a failure of or an attack on a critical supply chain infrastructure component. Different from many subjective risk assessment practices, our methodology provides a systematic approach to search for the most vulnerable supply chain components and measure the economic consequences of disruption. Modeling a supply chain using network flow models, we analyze the impact of disruption by linear programming theory, and propose an efficient assessment algorithm based on the dual network simplex method. Finally, a case study on the U.S. corn export supply chain is presented. Chapter III discusses the mitigation of risks created by transit time uncertainties in less-than-truckload (LTL) line-haul operations. Transit time uncertainty may undermine the performance of the load plan, which specifies the route for each shipment and is synchronized to reduce line-haul costs. In our study, risk assessment of a load plan is performed via a dispatch simulation under randomly generated travel time scenarios. The risk consequence is measured by the average excess operational cost, including transportation cost and handling cost. Compared to existing line-haul network models embedded within integer programming approaches for load plan optimization, the dispatch simulation can evaluate the performance of a load plan more realistically. In addition, a heuristic search algorithm based on "multi-tree pivots" is provided to obtain a cost-efficient load plan that is robust to transit time uncertainties. Chapter IV presents methodology to assess the consequence of risks which arise from the intentional contamination of a food supply chain. Different from many risk management practices, the source of risk in this problem is an intelligent adversary, e.g., a terrorist group, who intends to deliver chemical or biological toxins to consumers using the supply chain. First, a general modeling scheme based on state-space models is provided to describe the dissemination of toxin across consumed products in a food supply chain. Then, a case study based on a representative liquid egg supply chain is presented. Based on the system model, a risk assessment for different supply chain designs is performed by simulation. Moreover, an in-depth analysis is conducted to determine the worst-case consequence given an intelligent attack considering the operational characteristics of the system. The worst-case consequence tool developed is designed to be embedded within any risk assessment approach.

There is no bank in Taiwan who doesn¡¦t prepare meticulously for implementation of The New Basel Capital Accord coming in 2007.Banking is more complex in recent years, except tranditional loans and investments.The products of derivatives are to change with each passing day under rapid development of financial engineering among which the credit derivatives not only can transfer credit risks,but also be a tool admitted within Basel II for mitigation,so This research is to prob into Basel II and the function of credit derivatives affecting the management strategy of medium and small-sized non-financial holding banks. This research was adopted qualitative methods which is to select two medium and small-sized non-financial holding banks whose total assets are beneath NT$600 billions at the end of Year 95 as interview cases,and conducted in-depth interviews with officers of the two banks.The interview result obtained was induced and analyzed found as follow: 1. The constitution of medium and small-sized non-financial holding banks is generally not sound. 2. The medium and small-sized non-financial holding banks have limited weakness of resoures and credit rating relatively,and will suffer biggest impact after implementation of Basel II. 3. Banks will execute a more strict lending policy to avoid over-risky loan assets and boost the efficiency of capital utility. 4. The medium and small-sized banks have no room and ability to develop and design the products of credit derivatives at present. 5. The effects of mitigation resulted from using the tool of credit derivatives or securitization of financial assets require observing. 6. As The banking industry changes,Lebensraum of the medium and small-sized banks becomes more and more limited.They should seek to keep strategic alliance with or to be merged by large-scale financial holding company or foreign bank for survival.

This thesis proposes a classification system of risk mitigation strategies based on literature search and industry interviews. Following that, a list of generic properties was generated to describe individual strategies. In parallel, populating the properties of a large number of identified strategies was attempted. The practical implications are discussed mainly focusing on knowledge management for risk mitigation strategies.

abstract: The U.S. Army Medical Command has been testing a leadership based structure to increase the performance of delivering construction and facility services in its system of $600M of construction and 26 major hospital facilities in the U.S. The organizational requirement was to minimize the management and oversight of contractors and simultaneously increase project performance. The research proposes that a leadership based structure can supplement the perception, preplanning, and risk minimization capability of a contractor's project manager, thus increasing the project performance (on time, within budget, and meeting expectations) and decreasing client management requirement. The projects were delivered in a best value and low price environment. The major impact of this research was that proactive management by contractors was more effective than traditional management such as direction, control, and inspection by client's professional representatives. The results based on data collection and date analyses validated that a leadership based structure can increase the performance of an organization and reduce its management requirement. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Construction 2010

Purpose: In the last decade, supply chains of many global firms have been exposed to severe and costly supply chain disruptions. Triggered by either a manmade or a natural disaster, these disruptions are often a result of the increased network complexity and interdependency. One of the many contributing factors to this increased network complexity is the conscious effort by organizations to over optimise their efficiency and performance. The field of supply chain resilience, robustness and vulnerability studies, a new and growing area of knowledge, is contributing towards discovering the causes leading to supply chain disasters and measures to tackle them. Criticized to be highly fragmented and fraught with conceptual ambiguity, the filed has been evolving by incorporating vulnerability and resilience research from other interdisciplinary domains. This present research aims at mapping the intellectual territory of the resilience, robustness and vulnerability domain by conducting a literature review. The review also aims to establish a conceptual clarity in the definition of terms and constructs relevant to the field and to discover conceptual and methodological gaps in the existing body of literature. Design/methodology/approach: This literature review is conducted using a systematic review approach which benefits from a clearly defined audit and decision trail. After filtering through 2077 titles, the review is taken up for 43 articles. Findings: The review demonstrates that the drivers of vulnerability and strategies to tackle it can be grouped into three themes, Structural, Operational and Strategic. The review also demonstrates that the field is still plagued with conceptual ambiguity. By the analysis of the findings, a number of research directions were identified. Research limitations/implications: Major limitations to this study were the associated personal bias in quality assessment of included and excluded articles. Also, due to blurred definitions of terms and constructs in the literature, the thematic classification of findings could be challenged. Lastly, it cannot be stated with conviction that the chosen 43 articles are sufficient. Practical implications: This research highlights the future conceptual and methodological prospects in the field of resilience, robustness and vulnerability. The direction of structural research proposed in the thesis has a very high potential to secure future supply chains. Originality/value: This review is first to address the issue of SCV, SCRel and SCRob. The review provides an extensive overview of the present extant of the vulnerability, robustness research and it proposes a thematic framework to further extend the knowledge in this filed.

This thesis proposes a classification system of risk mitigation strategies based on literature search and industry interviews. Following that, a list of generic properties was generated to describe individual strategies. In parallel, populating the properties of a large number of identified strategies was attempted. The practical implications are discussed mainly focusing on knowledge management for risk mitigation strategies. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Civil Engineering, Department of / Graduate