O objetivo deste estudo é identificar e examinar o atual estágio de desenvolvimento da gestão da rede de suprimentos do setor industrial de construção civil brasileiro, buscando visualizar as transformações ocorridas e a ocorrer, e os fatores limitantes e incentivadores do seu processo de modernização, gerando parâmetros de referência que espera-se possam servir de base à consolidação de uma teoria sucinta sobre a gestão da cadeia de suprimentos na indústria de construção ou até, de forma presuntiva, sobre o recente conceito de Supply Chain Management, que possa servir como opção estratégica para as empresas deste setor. Os conceitos desenvolvidos neste processo, as variáveis observadas, as mudanças estratégicas e operacionais decorrentes, e os sinalizadores desta evolução compõem os principais resultados deste trabalho. / The objective of this study is to identify and to examine the current stage of development of the supply chain management of the Brazilian construction industry. lt aims to understand the transformation that it has gone through and are still to bappen, and the constraining as well as competitive factors of the modernization process, generating parameters of reference that it hopes can be used as base to the consolidation of a brief theory on the supply chain management in the construction industry. It is also expected that this theory be used as strategic option. The main results of this piece of work are the concepts developed in this process, the observed variables, the current strategic and operational changes, and the indicators of this evolution.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the intra-organisational processes used by businesses operating in the United Kingdom to narrow the gap between their socially and environmentally responsible procurement (SERP) policy and its implementation in buyer-supplier relationships. This is a response both to the wide variety of recent human/labour rights and environmental violations in corporate supply chains as well as to concerns that the corporate policies developed in response to stakeholder pressure regarding such violations may not be sufficient for the effective implementation of their remedy. This examination of corporate efforts to implement SERP policy initiates a line of research aimed at building a theory of internal SERP policy implementation. The theoretical lens used in the component studies of this thesis is a combination of organisational culture and the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm. The former is used to assess how top managers and procurement departments show support for SERP implementation. This is to say that aspects of their cultures are used to perceive this support. The organisational and human resources made available to the procurement department are considered to be the capabilities needed to translate this support into practice. Drawing on data from a survey of 340 buyer-supplier relationships and from two in-depth case studies of businesses operating in the United Kingdom, this thesis contributes both theoretically and empirically to the literature. Prime examples of this thesis‟ contributions include the mapping of commercial processes used to connect stakeholder rights and pressures to procurement activity; the identification of internal subgroups that affect SERP implementation; and the conceptual reconsideration of two core capabilities theorised to facilitate this process. Further research includes the replication of case studies; the consideration of supplier capabilities to implement buyer requirements; and how this research can be more aligned with extant supply chain strategy research.

Multinational corporations (MNCs) in the West have introduced voluntary codes of conduct (CoC) in global supply chains to promote the application of international labour standards and labour rights in their suppliers’ factories. Previous studies on CoC implementation have addressed various problems of its effectiveness but they are limited to a rather narrow context of business relationships between MNCs and factory-based suppliers. My research examines CoC implementation in a wider global supply chain and domestic institutional context. It aims to: firstly, assess how CoC is implemented throughout the multi-layered clothing supply chain and, secondly, identify structural and institutional constraints which hinder the effectiveness of CoC. The thesis employs qualitative analyses of 398 web-based documents from the 75 largest clothing brands and retailers in US and UK markets. It also provides data from 62 in-depth and semi-structured interviews of garment factories managers, workers, vendors, labour auditors and local officials in Vietnam, as well as representatives from UK retailers and campaign groups. The thesis analyses various sets of relationship among these actors and in two dimensions of the environments in which CoC operates: global supply network structure and domestic employment relations system. My thesis makes three original contributions. Firstly it challenges the presumed logic of CoC aimed at supporting workers, because it shows evidence from the workers’ perspective that CoC not only fails to support workers’ needs but also faces resistance from them in non-complying factories in Vietnam. Secondly, I argue that the oversimplified assumption of principal-agent control model between MNCs and suppliers’ factories, which underpins the CoC arrangement, fails to recognise the complex structure of supply network with interdependent operations and multi-level flow of commands. Finally, my thesis exposes the weakness of market initiatives like CoC: when their pledges to improve working conditions and promote workers’ rights clash with economic and socio-political priorities of the local government, the latter prevails. Taking the business and institutional dimensions together I have developed a framework for a more comprehensive assessment of CoC and similar voluntary initiatives that can be applied by other researchers in similar contexts.

Hospitals are looking to industry for proven tools to manage increasingly complex operations and reduce costs simultaneously with improving quality of care. Currently, €˜lean€™ is the preferred system redesign paradigm, which focuses on removing process waste and variation. However, the high level of complexity and uncertainty inherent to healthcare make it incredibly challenging to remove variability and achieve the stable process rates necessary for lean redesign efforts to be effective. This research explores the use of an alternative redesign paradigm €“ €˜agile€™ €“ which was developed in manufacturing to optimize product delivery in volatile demand environments with highly variable customer requirements. €˜Agile€™ redesign focuses on increasing system responsiveness to customers through improved resource coordination and flexibility. System dynamics simulation and empirical case study are used to explore the impact of following an agile redesign approach in healthcare on service access, care quality, and cost; determine the comparative effectiveness of individual agile redesign strategies; and identify opportunities where lean methods can contribute to the creation of responsive, agile enterprises by analyzing hybrid lean-agile approaches. This dissertation contributes to the emerging literature on applying supply chain management concepts in healthcare, and opens a new path for designing healthcare systems that provide the right care, at the right time, to the right patient, at the lowest price.

A administração estratégica (AE) é um fator relevante para a competitividade das empresas. O gerenciamento isolado, porém, não se apresenta como uma alternativa completa para enfrentar os desafios dos mercados. É necessário alterar a abordagem individual, onde cada unidade da cadeia de suprimentos (CS) toma decisões sem considerar o impacto para os membros participantes, por estratégias integradas que geram um ambiente globalmente otimizado. Nesse contexto, uma questão importante é evidenciada: que elementos são importantes para a realização da integração das estratégias entre uma empresa focal (EF) e sua cadeia de suprimentos, considerando a relação com fornecedores diretos? Na busca de uma resposta ao questionamento, o presente trabalho desenvolve um estudo de caso em uma empresa fabricante de equipamentos agrícolas do RS e seus fornecedores. Como limite de pesquisa, são consideradas especificamente as estratégias de manufatura na CS direta. Os resultados obtidos sugerem que o tipo e o nível de importância dos elementos de integração mudam na visão da EF e dos fornecedores. Para a EF, por exemplo, é notável a centralidade do lean manufacturing (LM) na definição e execução das estratégias e também a necessidade de alinhamento interno entre departamentos. Já para os fornecedores são salientados aspectos como a confiança para troca de informações entre os membros da CS e uma comunicação adequada. / Strategic management is a relevant factor for a company’s competitiveness. However, management alone is not a complete alternative to overcome the challenges imposed by the market. It is necessary to change from individual approaches, where each component of the supply chain (SC) makes decisions without considering the impact for other participating members, to integrated strategies, that generate a globally optimized environment. In this context, an important issue outstands: what are the important elements to integrate the strategies of a focal company (FC) and its supply chain, considering the relationship with suppliers? In the search for an answer to this question, this paper develops a case study in an agricultural equipment manufacturing company based on Rio Grande do Sul and the company’s direct suppliers. As a research limit, manufacturing strategies considered specifically the direct supply chain. The results show that the integration elements type and level of importance are different for the FC and the suppliers. The FC, for example, remarkably centers the strategy definition and execution on lean manufacturing (LM) and internal alignment by departments as an requirement. On the other hand, suppliers emphasize aspects such as the trust to exchange information between SC members and a proper communication.

Cette thèse propose trois essais sur les perturbations tout au long de la chaîne de distribution des produits alimentaires à haute valeur nutritionnelle. Elle contribue à notre compréhension des menaces liées à la réalisation des objectifs de sécurité alimentaire dans les pays émergents. Contribuant à l'analyse économique de la chaîne de distribution et des questions agricoles, la thèse est fondée sur différents éléments théoriques relatifs à la chaîne de valeur, la croissance du marché, la transmission des prix et met en œuvre des techniques d'économétrie appliquée (économétrie des données de panel, économétrie des séries temporelles) à partir de base de données originales. L'objectif est d'analyser les sources et l'ampleur des perturbations dans la chaîne de distribution des produits à haute valeur nutritionnelle.La première partie de la thèse analyse les perturbations sur les marchés des produits alimentaires à haute valeur non-transformés et moins transformés. Le Chapitre 2 examine les perturbations en amont et en aval de la chaîne de distribution de ces produits. Le Chapitre 3 étend l’analyse du Chapitre 2 en prenant en compte les perturbations relatives aux produits ayant subi un niveau de transformation élevé. Dans les deux chapitres, les perturbations sont analysées en termes de changement de prix et de quantité, à la fois en amont et en aval. Le changement de quantité est considéré comme une perturbation préliminaire alors que celui de prix est secondaire. Utilisant le marché de São Paulo comme sujet d'étude, le Chapitre 4 analyse les effets du prix du diesel sur les différents segments de la chaîne de distribution des produits alimentaires à haute valeur nutritionnelle. Un modèle à correction d’erreur (MCE) qui prend en considération les effets des prix entre les différents produits est estimé pour vérifier si les chocs provenant du prix du diesel sont plus élevés en amont qu'en aval. Ce chapitre est analytiquement fondé sur la théorie de la transmission des prix.Les résultats des Chapitres 2 et 3 montrent que les désastres climatiques sont des sources dominantes de perturbation de la chaîne de distribution des produits alimentaires à haute valeur nutritionnelle. Leur effet est négatif pour tous les produits analysés, bien que l'ampleur de perturbation varie d’un produit à l’autre. Les résultats du modèle à correction d’erreur (MCE) du Chapitre 4 montrent que les effets du prix du diesel sur les prix des produits alimentaires à haute valeur nutritionnelle sont positifs et significatifs, alors que les effets en aval sont plus élevés que ceux en amont. Les résultats de la thèse ont des implications importantes pour le développement et la mise en œuvre des politiques d’alimentation dans les pays émergents. Le Chapitre 1, introduction générale, justifie l'étude des différences entre l'ampleur de perturbation en amont et celle en aval, et situe la thèse dans les littératures existantes. Une conclusion générale est proposée en Chapitre 5 avec des propositions pour de futurs travaux de recherche. / This dissertation presents three essays on disruptions along nutritional high-value food supply chains in emerging countries. It extends our understanding of threats to the attainment of food security in emerging countries. With a contribution to agricultural economics, the dissertation relies on value chain, market growth and price transmission theories and applies both panel data and time series econometric techniques to analyse the sources and magnitudes of the disruption of nutritional high-value food chains.The first part of the dissertation examines disruptions in unprocessed and minimally processed nutritional high-value food markets. Chapter 2 examines upstream and downstream disruptions along these food chains. Chapter 3 extends the analysis in Chapter 2 by assessing how disruptions change when nutritional high-value foods are highly processed. For each of the two chapters, disruptions are studied in terms of changes in upstream and downstream quantities and prices, with the disruption of quantity considered primary while that of prices is secondary.Using the São Paulo food market as a case study, Chapter 4 analyses the effect of diesel price shocks on different segments of the nutritional high-value food supply chain. A Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) that takes into account upstream and downstream cross-price effects is estimated to ascertain if diesel price shocks are higher downstream based on price transmission theory.The results of Chapters 2 and 3 show that climatological disasters are the most dominant source of disruption of nutritional high-value food supply chains and the direction of impact is negative for all foods under study. The magnitude of disruption, however, varies by food. From the VECM results in Chapter 4, we see that the price of diesel has a positive and significant effect on food prices, while the effects downstream are lower than those upstream. These results have significant implications for the design and implementation of food policies in emerging countries.As a general introduction, Chapter 1 justifies the need to study upstream and downstream differences in the magnitude of supply chain disruption, by situating the dissertation in the existing supply chain and food price transmission literature. Chapter 5 concludes the study and offers suggestions for future research.

The fashion industry is today a global industry and has huge effect on our environment as well as on people. It is dominated by fast fashion and just-in-time production that has lead to increased seasons and mini-collections in season, which generate new low price items in store every week and even every day. This in turn has lead to an escalation in fashion trends that spris our desires for new experiences and leads to overconsumption where consumers buy more than they need, which in the end results in fashion waste. / Program: Magisterutbildning i Applied Textile Management

To survive and stay ahead in today’s competitive world companies are pushed to their limits in search for organizational skills and technologies. Of those Supply chain Management and Enterprise Resource Planning are the two most primarily used terms. In order to stay and survive in the competition companies are forced to speed up their production, reduce their cost and improve performance. All these three factors go hand in hand and in order to achieve these factors, information exchange from both inside and outside plays the key role. Supply chain management is the term used managing this accurate information’s in and out and ERP is the technology used for achieving the same.The purpose of this research is to continue in this field of study and solve real problems with ERP implementation, and eventually create analytical tools for these systems. With the advent of globalization ERP software has emerged as a major area of interest for many business organizations.There are two main research orientations in these studies which include: first, how to implement ERP system in a corporation and, second, what are the advantages of this system in resolving a variety of problems an organization might encounter.The first area, on which most of the studies have already focused, comprises studies on the fund, timing, economy and success of the implementation of ERP. On the contrary, our study addresses the functions of ERP in strategic and operational levels and also aims at bringing in the major difficulties and disadvantage on implementation of ERP systems into an organization.Our results suggest that ERP systems in its current state have a modest role to play in obtaining supply chain integration and management. With the major development in the field of communication and IT solutions we can expect a time shift where many solutions could be available for better interfacing of ERP systems and in turn which can help in achieving much better supply chain management.Many studies claim that the major advantage of an ERP system is that it is integrated and centralized. An ERP system offers the decision makers the means of enhancing the knowledge about the process which in turn helps to make reliable decisions more rapidly and as well collecting sources to support their decisions. However according to our findings from various studies it is evident that ERP helps to improve the reliability of decision by mutual participation of the participants, improves co-ordination of tasks which makes inter-related decision making easier. As a result it improves the satisfaction of decision process across the participants. / Program: Master’s Program in Industrial Engineering with Specialization in Logistics Management

Establishing traceability in global supply chains is a complicated problem. Current solutions for achieving traceability are expensive or imperfect, and give rise to organizational and trust-related issues. Blockchain could present itself as a solution to many of these issues. This thesis aims to build a blockchain-based traceability system. Based on the event  characteristics in IKEA Supply Chain, our analysis show that, for timely processing, the capacity of a traceability system should be 10 593 events per second. Additionally, 14 requirements were identified and included in the system design. A system was designed that consists of six components, a client application, a controller, a smart contract pool, IPFS and Quorum. In order to reduce the potential load on the system, certain optimization measures were taken. The system design resulted in a load requirement of 14 975 transactions for a delay bound of one minute. The resulting performance of the developed system revealed itself to be a throughput of 159 transactions per second and a convergence time of 4.71 seconds, which is not enough to reach the requirement. However, a solution is proposed to divide the network into many smaller networks that together can produce the necessary throughput.

Thesis: M. Eng. in Logistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, February 2016. (Axel Barbará). / Thesis: M. Eng. in Logistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, June 2015. (Tomás Dominguez Molet). / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (page 54). / Globalized companies seek growth while dealing with more complex and compelling challenges such as economic volatility, fluctuating commodity prices, supply-chain inefficiencies and increasing customer expectations. While companies cannot control all of these challenges, there is much they can do to remain competitive. Companies can gain competitive edge through improved demand forecasting and efficient inventory management. SKU segmentation is a concept that intends to demonstrate that there is a economic benefit behind treating and handling some products differently from another. Our thesis optimized SKU segmentation for a global CPG and restaurant brand. This aided inventory managers and supply planners adequately assess the varying needs of diverse products, to cluster them according to comparable needs, to reduce supply chain costs and optimize their supply chain. To explore this problem, we analyzed 53 weeks of forecast and demand data for over 15,000 SKUs. Utilizing a variety of clustering techniques, we identified a more cost-effective clustering strategy for the subject case. We analyzed the comparative costs between our theoretical classification and the actual classification used by the subject case study. Once we identified the disconnect, we calculated the incurred costs for being out of the optimal solution. This included both the effect of safety stock and the stock out costs. Our research created new insights into the comparable cost of under-forecasting and over-forecasting on safety stock and customer service level. / by Axel Barbará and Tomás Dominguez Molet. / M. Eng. in Logistics