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.

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.

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 purpose of this thesis is to provide companies with an understanding of how Swedish apparel companies manage supplier risks connected to production activities located in China. In order to conduct this study, previous literature regarding supply chain risk management has been analysed in relation to the empirical data collected during this study. In order to answer the research question, a qualitative method and a deductive approach have been used. A qualitative method was chosen as a deeper understanding of the phenomenon supply chain risk management was desired. A deductive approach was further chosen as the topic was acknowledged by reading previous research, which clearly emphasized existing research gap within supply chain risk management.  The literature review presented in this thesis regards the importance of managing a global supply chain and the risks connected to a global supply chain. Presented is also a process of how to manage risks, and the process consists of three steps, which further provides alternative strategies in order to conduct each step. Further, the reasons why Swedish companies outsource production activities to China and the importance of supply chain risk management in China is presented. The literature review is finalized with a conceptual framework summarizing the chapter. Differences and similarities between collected empirical data and the literature review is discussed and analysed in the analysis chapter. The following chapter provides conclusions answering the research question as well as theoretical and practical implications. This thesis has contributed with filling the research gap regarding supply chain risk management, this as the thesis focuses on one specific market and one specific industry. A new framework has been constructed based on previous research and the empirical findings. This framework also contributes to the practical implications as companies with a desire to outsource to China can use the process presented in the framework. The process includes three steps which will facilitate for companies to manage supplier risks in China. This thesis has also contributed to create an understanding for companies regarding the great importance of supply chain risk management. Therefore, this thesis can contribute with valuable information for Swedish apparel companies wanting to include supply chain risk management when outsourcing to China.

As organizações estão cada vez mais dependentes das suas cadeias de suprimentos. Devido à globalização e outros fatores, as cadeias de suprimentos podem se tornar bastante complexas, e existem riscos internos e externos que podem afetar as cadeias de suprimentos das mais diversas formas. O objetivo geral deste trabalho foi levantar conceitos e métodos que possam facilitar a gestão de riscos na cadeia de suprimentos, através de estudos exploratórios na literatura, gerando resultados de relevância gerencial. O método se baseou em uma revisão de literatura e análise dos resultados. Como resultado da análise apresentada foi possível contribuir com a literatura da seguinte forma: (i) consolidação de definições de gestão de riscos na cadeia de suprimentos (GRCS); (ii) consolidação de um conjunto de fases que compreendem a gestão de riscos na cadeia de suprimentos em fases ou subprocessos; (iii) estruturação de um procedimento, em nível conceitual, que permita orientar a análise de riscos na cadeia de suprimentos, pela ótica do desempenho; (iv) proposição de uma Estrutura Analítica de Riscos (EAR) para GRCS que possa servir de inspiração para as análises de gestão de riscos em empresas ou para uso em pesquisas da área. / Organizations are increasingly dependent on their supply chains. Due to globalization and other factors, supply chains may become quite complex, and there are internal and external risks that may affect supply chains in many different ways. The general objective of this work was to erect concepts and methods that may facilitate the management of risks in the supply chain, through exploratory studies in the literature, generating results of managerial relevance. The method was based on a literature review and analysis of these results. As a result of the analysis presented it was possible to contribute to the literature as follows: (i) consolidation of definitions on Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM); (ii) consolidation of a set of phases that comprise the Supply Chain Risk Management in phases or subprocesses; (iii) structuring of a procedure, at a conceptual level, so as to steer risk analysis in the supply chain, based on the perspective of performance; (iv) proposal of a Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) for SCRM that may serve as inspiration for the Supply Chain Risk Management in companies or for use in research area.

Supply chains have expanded rapidly over the decades, with the aim to increase productivity, lower costs and fulfil demands in emerging markets. The increasing complexity in a supply chain hinders visibility and consequently reduces one’s control over the process. Cases of disruption such as the ones faced by Ericsson and Enron, have shown that a risk event occurring at one point of the supply chain can greatly affect other members, when the disruption is not properly controlled. Supply chain management thus faces a pressing need to maintain the expected yields of the system in risk situations. To achieve that, we need to both identify potential risks and evaluate their impacts, and at the same time design risk mitigation policies to locate and relocate resources to deal with risk events. This dissertation aims to analyse how supply chain risks could be effectively managed. This is done firstly by positioning the research agenda in supply chain risk management (SCRM). Then, methods for effective management of supply chain risk are identified and analysed. In order to find these, we develop a research framework in which the supply chain system is divided into subsystems based on the operations of make, source and deliver; as well as on material, financial and information flows. Furthermore, research questions are raised in order to understand the impact of risks on supply chains, to identify the performance measures for monitoring supply chains, and to determine risk mitigation strategies for improving system performances. This dissertation includes a bibliometric analysis of relevant literature of SCRM published in recent years. Based on the co-citation analysis, we identify the changing interest in SCRM, from performance-focused individual issues in the early years to integrated system issues with management perspective in recent years. We also identify the growing importance of information issues in SCRM. However, there is a relative lack of research into risk mitigation focusing on information flows in the literature. This dissertation also develops a conceptual model for analysing supply chain risk. The adoption of tools from the established field of reliability engineering provides a systematic yet robust process for risk analysis in supply chains. We have found that the potential use of a stand-alone tool of Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA) or a hybrid application of Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), will be most appropriate in SCRM. Apart from above mentioned studies, this dissertation then includes three manuscripts respectively investigating the risk mitigation policies in SCRM. First, we suggest a dynamic pricing policy when facing supply yield risk, such as price postponement, where price is determined only after receiving the delivery information. This postponed pricing, can improve the balance between supply and demand, especially when the delivery quantity is small, demand has a low uncertainty and there is a wide range when demand is sensible to price change. In another paper, a system dynamics model is developed to investigate the dispersion of disruption on the supply chain operation as well as along the network. Based on this simulation model, policies are tested to observe their influence to the performance of the supply chain. The study results support the benefit of a dual-sourcing strategy. Furthermore, information sharing, appropriate order splitting and time to react would further improve the supply chain performance when disruption strikes. In the last paper, we study how capacity should be expanded when a new product is introduced into the market. The major risk here is due to a quick capacity expansion with large investments which could be difficult to recover. Using the Bass diffusion model to describe demand development, we study how capacity expansion, together with sales plan could affect the economics of the system. Using sales information for the forecast, delaying the sales and adding initial inventories, should create a better scheme of cash flows. This dissertation contributes in several ways to the research field of SCRM. It plots research advancements which provide further directions of research in SCRM. In conjunction with the conceptual model, simulations and mathematical modelling, we have also provided suggestions for how a better and more robust supply chain could be designed and managed. The diversified modelling approaches and risk issues should also enrich the literature and stimulate future study in SCRM.

<p>With the extensive use of outsourcing and more frequent technological innovations, global supply chains become vastly stretched and dynamic networks. As a result, firms face increasingly significant challenges to managing their fragile supply networks and responding to more rapidly changing demand evolutions. In this dissertation, we analyze three aspects of these challenges and summarize the findings in three essays. The first essay considers firms' problem of managing social and environmental non-compliance risk at its sub-tier suppliers. We figure out under what circumstances the firms should delegate the sub-tier supplier non-compliance management to its direct suppliers and under what directly control. In the second essay, we analyze the firm's strategy to deal with random demand surges. We develop a new demand model that captures important non-Markov characteristics of possible random demand surge trajectories and derive the optimal safety stock and reactive capacity strategy. Eventually, we establish a useful framework for supply chain planning under a variety of surge demand characteristics (e.g., frequency, intensity, duration, and shape). In the third essay, we examine a dynamic customer-base management problem for a firm with finite capacity, when its customers are prone to disruption and retention risks. We show that the optimal base size is an adding-up-to policy and derive the firm's optimal capacity allocation policy when capacity shortage occurs. In summary, our studies in this dissertation provide useful modeling ideas, decision tools, insights, and guidance for firms to build up resilient supply chains from both the supply and demand sides.</p> / Dissertation

This paper presents an expert system to monitor social sustainability compliance in supply chains. The system allows to continuously rank suppliers based on their risk of breaching sustainability standards on child labor. It uses a Bayesian network to determine the breach likelihood for each supplier location based on the integration of statistical data, audit results and public reports of child labor incidents. Publicly available statistics on the frequency of child labor in different regions and industries are used as contextual prior. The impact of audit results on the breach likelihood is calibrated based on expert input. Child labor incident observations are included automatically from publicly available news sources using text mining algorithms. The impact of an observation on the breach likelihood is determined by its relevance, credibility and frequency. Extensive tests reveal that the expert system correctly replicates the decisions of domain experts in the fields supply chain management, sustainability management, and risk management.

Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) supply chains (SCs) are becoming more and more vulnerable to different types of risks due to the increasing complexity of markets, uncertainties, and turbulence, especially in the Middle East Region (MER). The main reason behind this is the political and economic instabilities resulting from the Arab Spring revolutions which affected all SC entities. There is an urgent need to investigate how to build resilient SCs that can help all partners in the chain to proactively identify and sidestep risks, and bounce back more quickly in the case of disruptions. For this reason, this research focuses on the creation of effective SC resilience model that could help companies to avoid SC risks to reduce vulnerability instead of being reactive toward disruptions. A conceptual model for SC resilience has been developed which identified three main constructs of SC resilience: risks, capabilities, and key performance indicators (KPIs). The links between the three constructs have been established. The empirical study has been conducted in two stages. In stage one, semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data from 30 companies in FMCG SCs operating in the MER. A combination of thematic and comparative analysis has been used to analyse the qualitative data collected from the interviews in order to identify the main themes (types of risks and their causes, capabilities, and relevant KPIs), and to find the relations between themes. In stage 2, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to prioritize and rank the risks, capabilities, and KPIs using pairwise comparisons by taking into account opinions and preferences from SC managers in the FMCG industry in the MER. Preceding the analysis, a second round of structured interviews according to AHP process were conducted with the same 30 companies used in stage one. The thesis adds to the SC resilience literature by empirically explore the main causes of SC vulnerabilities that the FMCG SCs face in the MER and how companies can increase their capabilities to improve the resilience performance of the entire chain. An important contribution of this thesis is the development of the model for SC resilience in FMCG industry in MER context, that provides a useful reference model to assist managers in build a resilient SC, specifically, by identifying the main types of risks and their sources, by defining relevant capabilities that can help anticipate and overcome risks, and by recommending appropriate KPIs that can act as a sensor to market dynamics in the FMCG industry in MER. The model with the matrices (of risks-capabilities-KPIs) developed in this research established the links and interactions among the risks, capabilities, and KPIs which have great potential in guiding decision makers through the SC management (SCM) process, so that more informed decisions can be made and implemented for important risks to be avoided and to create more resilient FMCG SCs.

As organizações estão cada vez mais dependentes das suas cadeias de suprimentos. Devido à globalização e outros fatores, as cadeias de suprimentos podem se tornar bastante complexas, e existem riscos internos e externos que podem afetar as cadeias de suprimentos das mais diversas formas. O objetivo geral deste trabalho foi levantar conceitos e métodos que possam facilitar a gestão de riscos na cadeia de suprimentos, através de estudos exploratórios na literatura, gerando resultados de relevância gerencial. O método se baseou em uma revisão de literatura e análise dos resultados. Como resultado da análise apresentada foi possível contribuir com a literatura da seguinte forma: (i) consolidação de definições de gestão de riscos na cadeia de suprimentos (GRCS); (ii) consolidação de um conjunto de fases que compreendem a gestão de riscos na cadeia de suprimentos em fases ou subprocessos; (iii) estruturação de um procedimento, em nível conceitual, que permita orientar a análise de riscos na cadeia de suprimentos, pela ótica do desempenho; (iv) proposição de uma Estrutura Analítica de Riscos (EAR) para GRCS que possa servir de inspiração para as análises de gestão de riscos em empresas ou para uso em pesquisas da área. / Organizations are increasingly dependent on their supply chains. Due to globalization and other factors, supply chains may become quite complex, and there are internal and external risks that may affect supply chains in many different ways. The general objective of this work was to erect concepts and methods that may facilitate the management of risks in the supply chain, through exploratory studies in the literature, generating results of managerial relevance. The method was based on a literature review and analysis of these results. As a result of the analysis presented it was possible to contribute to the literature as follows: (i) consolidation of definitions on Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM); (ii) consolidation of a set of phases that comprise the Supply Chain Risk Management in phases or subprocesses; (iii) structuring of a procedure, at a conceptual level, so as to steer risk analysis in the supply chain, based on the perspective of performance; (iv) proposal of a Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) for SCRM that may serve as inspiration for the Supply Chain Risk Management in companies or for use in research area.