Yes / The effective management of pharmaceuticals in the National Health Service (NHS) is critical to patient welfare thus any risks attached to this must be identified and controlled. At a very basic level, risks in the pharmaceutical supply chain are associated with product discontinuity, product shortages, poor performance, patient safety/dispensing errors, and technological errors (causing stock shortages in pharmacies) to name but a few, all of which incur risk through disruption to the system. Current indications suggest that the pharmaceutical industry and NHS practitioners alike have their concerns as to the use of generic supply chain strategies in association with what is perceived to be a specialist product (pharmaceuticals). The aim of the study undertaken was to gain a more realistic understanding of the nature and prevalence of risk in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain (PSC) to be used as a basis for a more rigorous research project incorporating in-vestigation in the UK, Europe and USA. Data was collected via a workshop forum held in November 2005. The outputs of the workshop indicated that there were thirty-five prevalent risks. The risks were rated using risk assessment catego-ries such as impact, occurrence and controllability. The findings indicated that the risks identified are similar to those prevalent in industrial supply chains, regardless of the idiosyncrasies of pharmaceuticals. However, the group consen-sus was that caution must be applied in how such risks are addressed, as there are aspects of the product that highlight its uniqueness e.g. criticality.

En général, cette recherche se compose de quatre parties, sur fond de recherche , l'identification des risques, évaluation des risques et des suggestions de contrôle des risques. Arrière-plan de recherche comprend l'introduction de la recherche, l'auteur fond et revue de la littérature sur les théories et les concepts clés et les mécanismes de formulation de risque. L'identification des risques est la première étape importante de la gestion du risque d'entreprise. Dans cette recherche, remue-méninges, une interview, RBS et les méthodes de revue de la littérature seront utilisés ensemble pour identifier les risques dans l'industrie chinoise de fret aérien. Du point de vue de la théorie, il expliquera pourquoi il choisit ces méthodes et met en oeuvre la comparaison des méthodes. Grâce à l'interview, enquête auprès des experts, deux couches de facteurs de risque ont été créées. Pour les méthodes d'évaluation des risques, il y a principalement environ 14 méthodes indépendantes d'évaluation des risques sont discutés, veille stratégique, l'analyse du pire cas et ainsi de suite. Pour l'évaluation de l'industrie chinoise de fret aérien du risque, l'ANP est une méthode scientifique, raisonnable et pratique. Le jugement et la suggestion des experts sont indispensables et complémentaires dans l'évaluation des risques, y compris la méthode de l'ANP. En raison de la pratique de l'identification des risques, l'auteur a une relation étroite avec la plupart des experts au sein de l'industrie chinoise de fret aérien. 20 experts ont été choisis comme les personnes interrogées. Basé sur les 17 questionnaires valides et des logiciels de Superdecision, le processus d'évaluation des risques réalisée toutes les priorités pour tous les facteurs de risque. Selon le résultat, 19 risques sont classés en trois catégories, les risques rouge, jaune et blanc. Pour chaque type de risques, tous les participants peuvent prendre des décisions contre des risques en fonction du résultat de l'évaluation. L'évaluation des risques n'est pas la fin de la gestion des risques pour l'industrie chinoise de fret aérien, le but de l'évaluation des risques est de soutenir la réalisation et apporter des inférences décision. En Chine, le eCargo est une pratique de ACSCEP qui est proposé par le gouvernement de la Chine. En tout, ACSCEP peut résoudre de nombreux risques de fret aérien chinois. En tant qu'expert et membre de la plateforme eCargo, j'ai proposé que eCargo est un bon des contre-mesures de risque. / Generally this research consists of four parts, research background, risk identification, risk assessment and risk control suggestions. Research background consists of research introduction, author background and literature reviews on key concepts and theories, and risk formulation mechanisms. Risk identification is the first and important step of enterprise risk management. In this research, brainstorm, expert interview, RBS and literature review methods will be used together to identify the risk in Chinese air cargo industry. From theory perspective, it will explain why it chooses these methods and implements the methods comparison. Through the interview, survey with experts, two layers of risk factors have been founded. For the risk assessment methods, there are mainly about 14 independent risk assessment methods are discussed, as strategic scanning, worst-case analysis and so on. For the risk assessment of Chinese air cargo industry, ANP is a scientific, reasonable and practical method. Experts’ judgment and suggestion are indispensable and complementary in risk assessment, including ANP method. Because of the practice of risk identification, the author has a close relationship with most of the experts within Chinese air cargo industry. 20 experts were chosen as the interviewees. Based on the 17 valid questionnaires and Superdecision software, risk assessment process produced all priorities for all the risk factors. According the result, 19 risks are classified into three categories, red, yellow and white risks. For each kind of risks, all the participants can make risk counter decisions according to the assessment result. Risk assessment is not the end for risk management for Chinese air cargo industry, the purpose of the risk assessment is to support the decision making and bring inferences. In China, the Ecargo is one practice of ACSCEP which is proposed by China government. In all, ACSCEP can solve many Chinese air cargo risks. As an expert and member of Ecargo platform, I proposed that Ecargo is a good risk counter measures.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the activities that nascent firms undertake to improve customer attractiveness and gain collaborative commitment from strategic suppliers. Design/methodology/approach: Data from a grounded theory study consisting of 26 participants from 15 firms and a review of extant literature were used to develop a theoretical model that explains how a nascent firm increases its customer attractiveness to elicit commitment and collaboration from strategic suppliers. Findings: The authors find that social capital, born of close social ties and social history, enhances the effectiveness of a nascent firm's relationship-building practices. This counteracts a supplier's collaborative risk and consequently increases the nascent firm's customer attractiveness, thus enabling it to obtain strategic supplier collaborative commitment. Practical implications: This research helps managers by providing direction on what practices nascent firms pursue to gain strategic supplier resources and collaboration. Given the reality of resource constraints in nascent firms, it is suggested that this insight is essential to obtaining crucial external resources needed to survive and grow. Originality/value: Extant research on buyer–supplier collaboration is mostly confined to the context of mature firms and does not account for the unique inter-organizational relational challenges faced by nascent firms. This research uncovers the idiosyncrasies of supplier management in nascent firms, and elucidates on the actions that nascent firm managers take to gain supplier collaborative commitment.

Interferences to supply chains, regardless of whether they are regular, unplanned or intentional, are progressively distorting supply chain execution. Given that such disruptions are probably not going to diminish, for the time being, supply chain risk mitigating solutions will assume an undeniably critical part of the management of supply chains. This research acknowledges the existence of an extensive variety of approaches to mitigate risks across supply chains, yet argues that most methodologies may not be reasonable if the culture of an organisation does not support them. Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) has rapidly become of significance to the world economy. Though the supply of electrical energy in Southern Africa affects the economies of nations around the globe, it has received too little consideration from the literary community. The focus of this thesis is to expand the field of SCRM by analysing how different risk assessment and management concepts and practices are comprehended, construed and employed through the region. The majority of developed supply chain management and risk management models are currently entrenched in the US and Europe. Consequently, this research is of high significance since its essential aim was to investigate these concepts and models, in particular, one focused on Africa. This approach enabled the thesis to examine and test components related to SCRM, such as risk categories, risk assessment and risk strategies, in the electrical energy sector in South Africa. The study in this manner offers knowledge that was not otherwise accessible in earlier research. In pursuit of meeting the requirements of the research questions, the supply chain department in the electrical energy supplier was researched. This study adopted the non-probability sampling approach utilising the purposive sampling technique to choose the sampling components from the target population. Data was collected by way of conducting semi-structured interviews and researcher observation, as well as additional documentation in various forms was collected. Interviews were transcribed and evaluated in conjunction with additional data collected during meetings and triangulated using researcher observation. Data interpretation and codification thereof was done using ATLAS.ti 8 by which, twenty-five themes emerged from this study. Supply chain risks comprise value streams; information and affiliations; supply chain activities; and external situations. Among these, information and relationships risks were found to produce selfupgrading risk loops, thereby generating consequent risk impacts after disturbances. To mitigate these risks, the case firm must engage in local and international supply chain implemented strategies, such as building a stable supply chain network, leveraging supply chain information, leveraging outsourcing contracts and developing supply-chain risk collaboration partnerships, although the level of implementation depends on the business context. Among the ten identified themes, building a stable supply chain and developing supply chain collaboration strategies can be useful in strengthening both robustness and resilience in supply chain risk management. Customer orientation had positive impacts on all themes, but disruption orientation and quality orientation influenced only certain types of strategies. The study makes ten recommendations, which can be implemented by the case firm; the results of the interviews are evidence that all the tools are available. The thesis concludes with a summary of overall findings and areas for further research are also highlighted.

Med inspiration av rådande Coronakris analyserar denna rapport de kriser som påverkat svensk industri under de senaste tre decennierna med avseende på tre perspektiv: globalisering, automatisering och standardisering. En generell definition av en kris ges som grund för rapporten; det är plötsliga och snabba förändringar som bidrar till ett oförutsägbart händelseförlopp som inte sällan hamnar utom kontroll. Arbetet beaktar de tre olika perspektiven genom hela rapporten vilka alla kopplar samman mot kriser på flera sätt. Analysen är baserad på en fallstudie genom intervjuer samt en litteraturstudie och mynnar ut i separata resultat med följande diskussion. Nedan följer en sammanfattning av respektive perspektiv. Globalisering är något som påverkar industrin på många sätt men i denna rapport är tillverkande företags globala distrubutionsnätverk i huvudfokus. Frågan som undersöks i rapporten är hur globalisering påverkar industrin vid en kris, hypotesen är att en större grad av globalisering leder till ökad risk för påverkan vid en kris. Slutsatsen är att globalisering kan leda till en ökad påverkan vid en kris och är en viktig faktor vid riskbedömning av distributionsnätverk. Dock innebär de globaliseringen en ökad komplexitet vilket gör riskerna svårhanterliga. Automatisering är något som påverkat den tillverkande industrin sedan början av industrialismen. I takt med att nya teknologier utvecklas har frågor höjts om automatiseringens långsiktiga effekter på produktionen. Denna rapport fokuserar därför på huruvida automatisering kan bidra till att svenska industrier blir mer motståndskraftiga vid kommande kriser. Slutsatsen är att en ökad automatisering bidrar till en högre ergonomi inom svenska industrier, bättre möjligheter för onshoring och en förbättrad flexibilitet. Därtill finns det inget som tyder på att behovet av mänskliga arbetskraft skulle minska på grund av en ökad automatiseringen. Däremot blir det en förskjutning av arbetsmarknaden mot högre akademisk kompetens. Standardiseringsperspektivet tar sig ett generellt uttryck inom Lean produktion och mer specifikt och djupgående i Kanban och linjeoptimering. Hypotesen som perspektivet bygger på är vilka möjligheter svenska industriföretag har för att med hjälp av standardiseringsförändringar lindra konsekvenserna av en kris. Slutsatsen är att standardisering kan ha viss inverkan på hur ett företag klarar sig genom en kris. Förutsättningarna för det är däremot oerhört individuella beroende företagens olika förutsättningar / Inspired by the current Corona crisis, this report analyzes the crises that have affected Swedish industry during the past three decades with regards to three perspectives: globalization, automation and standardization. A general definition of a crisis is provided as the basis for the report; it is sudden and rapid changes which contribute to an unpredictable course of events that not uncommonly gets out of control. The work takes into account the three different perspectives throughout the report, all of which are linked to crises in several ways. The analysis is based on a case study through interviews and a literature study and results in separate results with a following discussion. Below is a summary of each perspective. Globalization is something that affects the industry in many ways, but in this report, manufacturing companies’ global distribution networks are the main focus. The issue examined in the report is how globalization affects industry during a crisis, the hypothesis being that a greater degree of globalization leads to an increased risk of impact in a crisis. The conclusion is that globalization can lead to increased impact in a crisis and is an important factor in the risk assessment of distribution networks. However, with globalization comes increased complexity, which makes the risks difficult to manage. Automation is something that has affected the manufacturing industry since the beginning of industrialism. As new technologies develop, questions have been raised about the long-term effects of automation on production. This report therefore focuses on whether automation can help Swedish industries become more resilient in coming crises. The conclusion is that increased automation contributes to higher ergonomics in Swedish industries, better opportunities for onshoring and improved flexibility. In addition, there is no indication that the need for human labor would decrease due to increased automation. On the other hand, there is a shift in the labor market towards higher academic competence. The standardization perspective takes on a general expression in Lean production and more specifically and in-depth in Kanban and line optimization. The hypothesis being investigated is what conditions and opportunities Swedish industrial companies have for using the above-mentioned concepts to make changes that reduce the consequences of a crisis. The conclusion is that standardization can have a certain impact on how a company copes through a crisis. The prerequisites for this, on the other hand, are extremely individual dependent companies’ different conditions.

Abstract Background: Consumer interest and demand for healthy and ecologically produced local food has led to a high market demand that local production cannot meet. Product attributes of perishability and short life cycles ensure that even local supply chains are challenging to manage. This increases potential for risks occurrence in an Organic Food Supply Chain (OFSC) especially with unreliable supply of products. Small and established food retailers import organic food products from across the world. Custom delays, high transport charges, commodity costs and regulatory requirements are associated with food imports. This renders OFSCs complex and vulnerable to disruptions or breakdowns that require appropriate strategies to identify and mitigate risks. Purpose: To gain an overall insight of risks mitigation in OFSCs. The purpose of this thesis is to assess risks affecting suppliers and retailers of organic food and propose risk mitigation strategies to prevent or minimise supply chain breakdowns. Method: This qualitative study utilizes a case study strategy involving seven case firms and seven research respondents. Data is collected through semi-structured interviews and documentary secondary data. The analysis of the empirical findings is conducted by cross analysing empirical findings of respective case firms and then emerging patterns are formulated into a general framework. Conclusions: Low conversion rates of farms for organic production, high costs of investments and regulatory requirements have contributed to prevailing production risks that partly cause low organic output. Other risks identified that could disrupt the food chain under study include sourcing, warehousing, demand, price, financial and institutional risks. Mitigation strategies proposed include production procedures, CAP, supply chain flexibility, supply chain visibility, certification, diversification of retail channels, brand image building, horizontal & vertical cooperation and buyer-supplier relations.

Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) is rapidly becoming a most sought after research area due to the influence of recent supply chain disruptions on global economy. The thesis begins with a systematic literature review of the developments within the broad domain of SCRM over the past decade. Thematic and descriptive analysis supported with modern knowledge management techniques brings forward seven distinctive research gaps for future research in SCRM. Overlapping research findings from an industry perspective, coupled with SCRM research gaps from the systematic literature review has helped to define the research problem for this study. The thesis focuses on a holistic and systematic approach to modelling risks within supply chain and logistics networks. The systems thinking approach followed conceptualises the phenomenon of risk propagation utilising several recent case studies, workshop findings and focus studies. Risk propagation is multidimensional and propagates beyond goods, finance and information resource. It cascades into technology, human resource and socio-ecological dimensions. Three risk propagation zones are identified that build the fundamentals for modelling risk behaviour in terms of cost and delay. The development of a structured framework for SCRM, a holistic supply chain risk model and a quantitative research design for risk assessment are the major contributions of this research. The developed risk assessment platform has the ability to capture the fracture points and cascading impact within a supply chain and logistics network. A reputed aerospace and defence organisation in UK was used to test the experimental modelling set up for its viability and for bridging the gap between theory and practice. The combined statistical and simulation modelling approach provides a new perspective to assessing the complex behavioural performance of risks during multiple interactions within network.

The relaxation of international boundaries has enabled the globalisation of markets making available an ever increasing number of specialised suppliers and markets. Inevitably this results in supply chains sharing suppliers and customers reflected in a network of relationships. Within this context firms buyers configure their supply relationships based on their perception of supply risk. Risk is managed by either increasing trust or commitment or by increasing the number of suppliers. Increasing trust and commitment facilitates collaboration and reduces the propensity for a supplier to exit the relationship. Conversely, increasing the number of suppliers reduces dependency and increases the ease of making alternative supply arrangements. The emergent network of relationships is dynamic and complex, and due in no small part to the influence of inventory management practices, tightly coupled. This critical organization of the network describes a system that contrary to existing supply chain conceptualisation exists far from equilibrium, requiring a different more appropriate theoretical lens through which to view them. This thesis adopts a Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) perspective to position supply networks as tightly coupled complex systems which according to Normal Accident Theory (NAT) are vulnerable to disruptions as a consequence of normal operations. The consequential boundless and emergent nature of supply networks makes them difficult to research using traditional empirical methods, instead this research builds a generalised supply network agent based computer model, allowing network constituents (agents) to take autonomous parallel action reflecting the true emergent nature of supply networks. This thesis uses the results from a series of carefully designed computer experiments to elucidate how supply networks respond to a variety of market structures and permitted agent behaviours. Market structures define the vertical (between tier) and horizontal (within tier) levels of price differentiation. Within each structure agents are permitted to autonomously modify their prices (constrained by market structure) and collaborate by sharing demand information. By examining how supply networks respond to different permitted agent behaviours in a range of market structures this thesis makes 4 contributions. Firstly, it extends NAT by incorporating the adaptive nature of supply network constituents. Secondly it extends supply chain management by specifying supply networks as dynamic not static phenomena. Thirdly it extends supply chain risk management through developing an understanding of the impact different permitted behaviour combinations on the networks vulnerability to disruptions in the context of normal operations. Finally by developing the understanding how normal operations impact a supply networks vulnerability to disruptions it informs the practice of supply chain risk management.

Research questions 1. What kind of risks in the supply side of HUAWEI supply chain can be identified? 2. How can supply side risks of HUAWEI supply chain be assessed? 3. How can supply side risks of HUAWEI supply chain be mitigated? Purpose This paper describes supply side risks in HUAWEI in China, the types of risks identified, provides guidelines for assessment of these risks and suggestions for mitigation. Methodology In order to answer above research questions empirical data have been collected through observations, interviews at with logistics managers of HUAWEI in China, and from the official documents, annual reports and authentic web pages of the HUAWEI. Theoretical framework has been built through scientific articles, peer reviewed journals, authentic web based documents, and textbooks. The information is then assessed and analyzed, which result in conclusion and recommendations for the company. Conclusion There can be four major risks identified on the supply side. Manufacturing risk, logistics risk, information risk and inventory risk. The manufacturing risk include risks related to production, skill, and quality. The logistics risk further include delivery risk, lead time risk, and transportation risk. Production risk and skill risk are critical and they can be avoided by enhancing risk awareness, evaluating production feasibility, strengthen staff training, investing in high skills, strengthening R&D, and analysis of the external environment. The quality and inbound delivery risks can be reduced through supplier inspection and establishing good supplier relations. Lead time risk and inventory risk can be reduced by vendor based managed inventory system and mass customization. Meanwhile, transportation risk can adopt risk transfer strategy. The information risk can be reduced by increasing information sharing levels and adopting modern communication technologies.

This research has led to a novel methodology for assessment and quantification of supply risks in the supply chain. The research has built on advanced Knowledge Discovery techniques and has resulted to a software implementation to be able to do so. The methodology developed and presented here resembles the well-known consumer credit scoring methods as it leads to a similar metric, or score, for assessing a supplier’s reliability and risk of conducting business with that supplier. However, the focus is on a wide range of operational metrics rather than just financial, which credit scoring techniques typically focus on. The core of the methodology comprises the application of Knowledge Discovery techniques to extract the likelihood of possible risks from within a range of available datasets. In combination with cross-impact analysis, those datasets are examined for establish the inter-relationships and mutual connections among several factors that are likely contribute to risks associated with particular suppliers. This approach is called conjugation analysis. The resulting parameters become the inputs into a logistic regression which leads to a risk scoring model the outcome of the process is the standardized risk score which is analogous to the well-known consumer risk scoring model, better known as FICO score. The proposed methodology has been applied to an Air Conditioning manufacturing company. Two models have been developed. The first identifies the supply risks based on the data about purchase orders and selected risk factors. With this model the likelihoods of delivery failures, quality failures and cost failures are obtained. The second model built on the first one but also used the actual data about the performance of supplier to identify risks of conducting business with particular suppliers. Its target was to provide quantitative measures of an individual supplier’s risk level. The supplier risk scoring model is tested on the data acquired from the company for its performance analysis. The supplier risk scoring model achieved 86.2% accuracy, while the area under curve (AUC) was 0.863. The AUC curve is much higher than required model’s validity threshold value of 0.5. It represents developed model’s validity and reliability for future data. The numerical studies conducted with real-life datasets have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed methodology and system as well as its future potential for industrial adoption.