Until recently, academic and practitioner research on clinical trial supply chains focused on identifying innovative models and solutions in providing comparator and study drugs to global clinical sites. Due to the expansion of outsourcing efforts by pharmaceutical organizations, newly enacted global laws and regulations, and the continued push to increase the speed at which new drugs gain market approval, a new and extremely complex global “ancillary” supply chain has emerged. This manuscript focuses on the clinical trial ancillary supply chain: a supply chain that develops the end-to-end process resulting in the distribution and quality management of medical products and devices, consumable supplies, and patient giveaways to global clinical trial sites. Based on a series of quantitative analyses, this research assesses the influence of the customer, country, and product on the overall success of the supply chain. Three factors emerged from these analyses as having a direct influence on the clinical trial ancillary supply chain; product characteristics, magnitude (components of size), and stability (components of changes in scope). Part II of this research sought to understand the success of the supply chain by evaluating the moderating effects of knowledge management, organizational culture, therapeutic area, and type of shipment. Assessments of 444 customer and server surveys yielded components of a sense of shared culture, shared communication and transparency, and feeling educated and supported. Quantitative data analysis supported that these components had a moderating influence on success during the pre-trial phase of the supply chain. These research findings provide insight into the internal and external drivers of success within the complex and emergent clinical trial supply chain – a supply chain that helps pharmaceutical organizations bring innovative therapies to market and most important, those patients in need of such therapies to improve or even save their lives. / Business Administration/Interdisciplinary

This research aim to develop a framework to evaluate critically the effectiveness of health and safety strategies in supply chains in the UK was achieved through a range of objectives which included a review of literature on health and safety management in supply chains and small and medium-sized enterprises, an explanation of the effect of poor health and safety performance on organisations and analysis of factors that inspire health and safety management in organisations. Other objectives are the analysis of health and safety improvement strategies, an establishment of a basis for the development of a framework, the establishment of the perception and attitude to supply chain health and safety management, and the development of a conceptual framework based on ideal and best practices as well as theory that may be used to evaluate critically health and safety strategies in supply chains in the UK. The study adopted a triangulated research approach which used a questionnaire survey to ascertain the views of respondents on some health and safety issues. These views were combined with observations of a case study organisation to underpin the basis for the framework. It was established that the reliance on regulatory measures as means of improving health and safety standards in organisations is no longer advisable. An alternative and best strategy is the use of the influences inherent in supply chain relationships. There were noticeable improvements in the relationship of the case study organisation with its suppliers, and in the general awareness of supply chain health and safety management, when the framework that was developed was tried in their supply chain.

Thesis (PhD (Logistics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH SUMMARY: In an effort to compete globally, South African supply chains must achieve and maintain a competitive advantage. One way of achieving this is by ensuring that South African supply chains are as efficient as possible. Consequently, steps must be taken to evaluate the efficiency levels of South African supply chains. This dissertation develops the composite supply chain efficiency model using variables specifically identified as problem areas experienced by South African supply chains. The composite supply chain efficiency model evaluates the overall efficiency of a supply chain based on three criteria, namely, reliability efficiency, cost efficiency and speed efficiency. It identifies bottlenecks along the supply chain and in so doing identifies key focus areas for firms if they want to improve their overall efficiency and become more competitive. 3 / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In ’n poging om wˆereldwyd te kompeteer, moet Suid-Afrikaanse voorsieningskettings ’n mededingende voordeel behaal en handhaaf. Een manier om dit te bereik is om te verseker dat Suid-Afrikaanse voorsieningskettings so doeltreffend as moontlik funksioneer. Gevolglik moet stappe gedoen word om die doeltreffendheidsvlakke van die Suid-Afrikaanse voorsieningskettings te evalueer. Hierdie proefskrif het die saamgestelde voorsieningsketting doeltreffendheidsmodel ontwikkel wat veranderlikes gebruik wat spesifiek ge¨ıdentifiseer is as probleemgebiede in Suid-Afrikaanse voorsieningskettings. Die saamgestelde voorsieningsketting doeltreffendheidsmodel evalueer die algehele doeltreffendheid van ’n voorsieningsketting gebaseer op drie kriteria, naamlik, betroubaarheidsdoeltreffendheid, koste-doeltreffendheid en spoed-doeltreffendheid. Dit identifiseer knelpunte in die voorsieningsketting en identifiseer belangrike fokusareas vir ondernemings wat aangespreek moet word as hul algehele doeltreffendheid wil verbeter en meer mededingend raak. / jfl2010

Cloud computing, mobile computing, Service-Oriented Computing (SOC), and Software as a Service (SaaS) indicate that the Internet emerges to an anonymous service market where service functionality can be dynamically and ubiquitously consumed. Among functionally similar services, service consumers are interested in the consumption of the services which perform best towards their optimization preferences. The experienced performance of a service at consumer side is expressed in its non-functional properties (NFPs). Selecting the best-fit service is an individual challenge as the preferences of consumers vary. Furthermore, service markets such as the Internet are characterized by perpetual change and complexity. The complex collaboration of system environments and networks as well as expected and unexpected incidents may result in various performance experiences of a specific service at consumer side. The consideration of certain call side aspects that may distinguish such differences in the experience of NFPs is reflected in various call contexts. Service optimization based on a collaborative knowledge base of previous experiences of other, similar consumers with similar preferences is a desirable foundation. The research work described in this dissertation aims at an individually optimized selection of services considering the individual call contexts that have an impact on the performance, or NFPs in general, of a service as well as the various consumer preferences. The presented approach exploits shared measurement information about the NFP behavior of a service gained from former service calls of previous consumptions. Gaining selection/recommendation knowledge from shared experience benefits existing as well as new consumers of a service before its (initial) consumption. Our approach solely focuses on the optimization and collaborative information exchange among service consumers. It does not require the contribution of service providers or other non-consuming entities. As a result, the contribution among the participating entities also contributes to their own overall optimization benefit. With the initial focus on a single-tier optimization, we additionally provide a conceptual solution to a multi-tier optimization approach for which our recommendation framework is prepared in general. For a consumer-sided optimization, we conducted a literature study of conference papers of the last decade in order to find out what NFPs are relevant for the selection and consumption of services. The ranked results of this study represent what a broad scientific community determined to be relevant NFPs for service selection. We analyzed two general approaches for the employment of machine learning methods within our recommendation framework as part of the preparation of the actual recommendation knowledge. Addressing a future service market that has not fully developed yet and due to the fact that it seems to be impossible to be aware of the actual NFP data of different Web services at identical call contexts, a real-world validation is a challenge. In order to conduct an evaluation and also validation that can be considered to be close approximations to reality with the flexibility to challenge the machine learning approaches and methods as well as the overall recommendation approach, we used generated NFP data whose characteristics are influenced by measurement data gained from real-world Web services. For the general approach with the better evaluation results and benefits ratio, we furthermore analyzed, implemented, and validated machine learning methods that can be employed for service recommendation. Within the validation, we could achieve up to 95% of the overall achievable performance (utility) gain with a machine learning method that is focused on drift detection, which in turn, tackles the change characteristic of the Internet being an anonymous service market.

Responsible Sourcing is gaining growing importance for companies willing to demonstrate responsibility and commitment to sustainable practices. Sourcing is a key element of supply chain management and by adopting responsible sourcing practices, companies can greatly contribute to the sustainability of their entire supply chains. Being close to both customers and suppliers, retailers hold a particularly influential position in the supply chain and their sourcing choices can play a key role for sustainability improvements. This paper investigates the different strategies that can be adopted to guarantee responsible sourcing in the retail sector, through the specific case study of two UK retailers, Sainsbury´s and Tesco, and their offer of sustainable seafood. Specifically, the relation between the offer of MSC certified products and the retailers´ commitment to source responsibly is here analysed. The main source of data collection is a content analysis of retailers´ CSR online reports and web pages. Additional information is obtained through reports and web pages’ analysis of four UK organizations dealing with sustainable seafood issues. The findings of the study suggest that the offer of MSC certified products is positively correlated with the adoption of responsible sourcing practices; different strategies are available to retailers to guarantee responsible sourcing and that retailers´ sourcing policies can be influenced by other stakeholders´ guidelines for responsible sourcing.

Le renforcement des préoccupations vis-à-vis des problématiques de développement, de bien-être des populations et de qualité des écosystèmes, génère de nouvelles pressions économiques (labels, cahiers des charges, etc.), normatives (règlements, fiscalité), et de la société civile (consom'action, boycott), et impose aux entreprises de prendre en compte ces problématiques, c'est-à-dire d'identifier, d'évaluer, et d'améliorer leurs impacts. De nombreux outils existent pour évaluer les impacts des chaînes de produits mais seules les méthodes d'Analyse de Cycle de Vie permettent d'avoir une évaluation multicritère et globale, et de rendre compte des transferts d'impacts d'une étape à l'autre du cycle de vie et d'un impact à l'autre. Le développement de l'ACV sociale est vivement souhaité et réclamé par les acteurs. La problématique de cette thèse a consisté à s'interroger sur les principes d'élaboration d'une telle méthode, son cadre conceptuel, théorique et méthodologique. Les besoins de recherche identifiés étant nombreux, les contributions spécifiques de cette thèse ont été triples : i) proposer un nouveau cadre théorique et conceptuel adressant les problématiques de bien-être et de développement, ii) élaborer une relation permettant d'évaluer les impacts de la création d'activité économique et de revenus sur la santé des populations, le « pathway Preston » iii) proposer un cadre méthodologique articulant le Modèle à Capitaux Multiples et le concept de capabilités. Les filières agroalimentaires et plus particulièrement les filières d'importation de fruits et légumes tropicaux, ont servi de cadre empirique à ce travail. / Strengthening concerns regarding development issues, well-being and quality of ecosystems, generates new economic pressures (labeling, specifications, etc.), standards (regulations, taxation) and also pressures from civil society (“consom'action”, boycott); it requires companies to take into account these issues, that is to say, to identify, assess and improve their impacts. Many tools exist to assess the impacts of product chains but only the method of Life Cyle Assessment allows a comprehensive and multicriteria evaluation, covering transfers of impacts from one stage of the life cycle to the other and from one impact to the next. The development of Social LCA is highly desired and demanded by the actors. The core question of this thesis has been to examine the principles for developing such a method, its conceptual, theoretical and methodological framework. As the identified needs in terms of research are numerous, specific contributions of this work were threefold: i) proposing a new theoretical framework addressing the issues of well-being and development. ii) developing a relationship assessing the impacts of creating economic activity and income on the health of populations, the “Preston Pathway” iii) proposing a methodological framework articulating the Multiple Capitals Model and the Capabilities concept. Food chains, and most specifically, import fruit and vegetables chains, have served as the empirical framework for this thesis.

The research conducted for this thesis is an exploratory study of migrant workers' experiences in UK food supply chains. This thesis provides an original contribution to criminology by discussing how some food supply chain dynamics result in various exploitative and harmful labour practices against migrant workers. Data consisted of semi-structured interviews conducted with migrant workers in the UK, as well as individual and group interviews with food supply chain stakeholders, including representatives from industry, regulation, and labour movements. This research conceptualises labour exploitation as a continuum, with severe practices including modern slavery on one extreme and 'decent work' on the other. There are a range of practices in-between these two extremes that risk being overlooked, whereby 'routine', banal exploitation is embedded and normalised within legitimate supply chain processes. The argument developed in this thesis is that a stronger emphasis is needed on the harmful consequences of routine, mundane, everyday labour exploitation in order to understand how they can result from legitimate supply chain dynamics. The key contributions of this thesis can be summarised under four themes: developing a more rigorous analysis of 'routine' labour exploitation and harm against migrant workers; understanding how legitimate food supply chain dynamics can facilitate exploitation and harm; explaining how the regulatory framework may unwittingly result in further exploitation and harm to migrant workers; and recognising the complexity of the relationship between migration and labour exploitation. The thesis findings contribute to predominant discussions of labour exploitation that typically focus on severe exploitation such as modern slavery and emphasise rogue individuals or criminal networks as the main perpetrators. The research findings demonstrate that a significant amount of routine labour exploitation and harm remains 'under the radar' in the context of legitimate supply chain practices. Police action and supply chain regulation typically focuses on the most severe labour exploitation, which results in routine exploitation being largely unaddressed. Therefore, labour exploitation has implications for the nature, organisation, and control of harms facilitated by businesses and supply chains. It is important for criminology and society to not disregard routine labour exploitation, as these practices can result in numerous harmful consequences for workers. Since the public profile of labour exploitation continues to grow, a stronger focus is needed on the routine and banal aspects, not just the most severe practices.

In the paper, we minimize the holding cost of the safety stock held in a supply chain modeled as a general network. By our assumption, the demand is bounded by a concave function. This fact allows us to formulate the problem as a deterministic optimization. We minimize a concave function over a discrete polyhedron. The main goal of the paper is to describe an algorithm to solve the problem without assuming any particular structure of the underlying supply chain. The algorithm is a branch and bound algorithm. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

The first generation of agricultural crops developed using biotechnology have offered the primary producers of the crops agronomic benefits. Some consumers have resisted accepting this technology because of concerns with food and environmental safety, and ethical issues that arise from the processes that are involved in developing these products. The second and third generation of agricultural biotechnology are being developed to offer products with direct benefits to consumers. The focus of this thesis is the second generation, which have added health benefits. Specifically, the obstacles to commercialization of functional foods derived through biotechnology are examined. The three factors which have the potential to set back commercial introduction of functional foods derived through biotechnology are government regulatory uncertainty, consumer aversion and brand risk, and gaining access to intellectual property. The regulations governing functional foods are examined to show the regulatory ambiguity that exists in Canada. Comparisons are drawn to other nations. Literature that focuses on consumer aversion to agricultural biotechnology is reviewed, along with consumer preference studies with regards to genetically modified (GM) foods with and without health benefits. Transaction cost economics literature is used to analyse the problems related to gaining access to intellectual property and the resulting supply chain implications. Three separate theoretical models are developed to examine each of the three factors separately. Government regulatory uncertainty is incorporated into an expected profit model to show the effects of increased uncertainty on the expected profit from a new technology. A heterogeneous consumer preference model is used to show the effects of changing consumer preferences on the market share of the firm introducing the GM functional food to the market. Simulation analysis using this model shows the effects of changing variables on the market shares of three products in the market. Finally a stylized model of the vertical market shows the effects of increased transaction costs incurred in gaining access to intellectual property on the rent that is available for distribution throughout the supply chain. The results show that these factors could be an obstacle to commercial development of functional foods derived through biotechnology. When the three factors are combined, the rent available for distribution is important for the success of the supply chain. Multiple bilateral monopoly negotiations cause this rent to be less than optimal. Increased levels of government regulatory uncertainty, consumer aversion and brand risk, and costs gaining of access to intellectual property decrease the expected rent available for distribution. This could be a problem facing developers of functional foods derived through biotechnology.

Canada has been recognized as the largest exporter of flax seed in the world. Currently, very little flax straw is further processed, despite its potential as a value added product, with only about 7-10% of Canadian flax seed producers harvesting residual flax straw rather than burning the straw. A traditional use of flax straw has been for the production of fibre for the linen industry. Interest in flax fibre has been rekindled with the impetus to seek out bioproducts that replace non-renewal resources and provide value-added opportunities for agricultural producers. Flax fibre also has a range of potential uses in automotive parts, geotextiles, insulation material, etc. Despite this potential, the Canadian flax fibre sector remains largely underdeveloped, with fledgling supply chains and lack of investment in the necessary processing capacity. This paper develops a framework for analysing the relational exchanges at different stage of the supply chain to determine if the paucity in investment is the result of prohibitively high exchange costs. A number of distinct stages in the flax fibre supply chain can be identified: farmers producing flax seed and/or straw; processors who extract the natural fibre from the straw; and manufacturers who use the fibre in their products. The paper develops a framework that draws together insights from Transaction Cost Economics, Agency Theory and Bargaining Theory. The role of institutions in facilitating quality measurement and providing participants with information is also considered. The theoretical framework identifies asset specificity, agency measurement costs, bargaining power and under-developed institutions as key factors in the development of the flax fibre sector. From the theoretical framework, a set of propositions is developed that examine the anticipated effect of these factors on vertical coordination in the sector. The theoretical propositions are explored through a series of semi-structured interviews with parties at each stage of the supply chain (producers, fibre processors, final manufacturers), as well as with industry experts. Information from the interviews is used to identify the transaction characteristics and the institutional framework characterizing the flax fibre sector in Canada. This is analysed through a comparative case study approach with the flax fibre sector in Europe, and the wool fibre sector in New Zealand as an example of a fully developed and long-standing fibre sector. By also noting the different vertical coordination strategies that are present in these supply chains, a connection is drawn between the presence of certain transaction characteristics and the corresponding cost-minimizing exchange relationships. The case studies are used to investigate the propositions developed from the theoretical framework regarding the impact of transaction characteristics on the optimal vertical coordination strategy and the impediments to development and investment in the sector. The propositions developed in the framework are verified to a great extent by the comparative case study. The uncertainty in the exchange environment regarding the future direction of the flax fibre industry and the high measurement costs due to the absent quality and grading regime in the Canadian flax fibre set the two industries apart from each other. Both of these dimensions impact the exchange costs of a transaction and subsequently, the extent to which the parties are closely coordinated. The case studies verify that using a framework to analyze transactions provides additional insights because of the joint consideration of several features of the transaction.