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The pulp and paper industry has significant sustainability implications and necessarily requires a careful consideration of direct and lower-tier suppliers for effective sustainable supply chain management. This paper utilized an extensive literature review and semi-structured interviews of experts in the Chinese pulp and paper industry to unearth the factors that highly influence multi-tier supply chain sustainability. A Technological-Organizational-Environmental (TOE) and Human-Organizational-Technological (HOT-fit) based theoretical framework was employed to classify the identified factors. Then, an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) based methodology was applied to determine the relative importance of the factors. A comparison analysis of the relative importance of the factors as determined by the experts in the focal companies, Tier-1 suppliers and Tier-2 suppliers of the Chinese pulp and paper industry is presented. The results show that institutional and technological factors are most critical to actualizing multi-tier supply chain sustainability. Thus, the study outcomes present relevant theoretical and practical implications for the managers and practitioners in the pulp and paper industry on how to facilitate multi-tier supply chain sustainability for increased competitiveness. Furthermore, this study provides guidelines for other industries as well and sets the stage for subsequent theorization and exploration of multi-tier supply chain sustainability for expected performance gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of the International Journal of Production Research, focuses on the 'Carbon Neutrality' and 'SCM'. Nine articles have been selected for this special issue, and they cover various aspects to understand the manifestation of 'Carbon Neutrality' in supply chains, and to further illuminate how to achieve 'Carbon Neutrality' with supply chain innovation. This editorial provides a brief overview of the research domain, then introduces each article in the context of the state-of-the-art and highlights the contributions of selected papers to the field. Finally, the research perspectives are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the complexity and the magnitude of optimisation models that appeared in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), the use of meta-heuristic algorithms as competent solution approaches is being increased in recent years. Although a massive number of publications exist around SSCM, no extant paper explicitly investigates the role of meta-heuristics in the sustainable (forward) supply chain. To fill this gap, a literature review is provided on meta-heuristic algorithms applied in SSCM by analyzing 160 rigorously selected papers published by the end of 2020. Our statistical analysis ascertains a considerable growth in the number of papers in recent years and reveals the contribution of 50 journals in forming the extant literature. The results also show that in the current literature the use of hybrid meta-heuristics is overtaking pure meta-heuristics, the genetic algorithm (GA) and the non-dominated sorting GA (NSGA-II) are the most-used single- and multi-objective algorithms, the aspects of sustainability are mostly addressed in connection with product distribution and routing of vehicles as pivotal operations in supply chain management, and last but not least, the economic-environmental category of sustainability has been further noticed by the scholars. Finally, a detailed discussion of findings and recommendations for future research are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Revenue sharing contracts (RSCs) have gained considerable popularity over the past two decades—particularly among prominent platform distributors such as the Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon— and have therefore attracted a great deal of research attention in the domain of supply-chain management. This study is the first to review the literature dealing with RSCs, a literature in which the number of articles has been growing consistently over the years. Specifically, we aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the state of the art of the research field, and to identify potentially fruitful areas for further exploration. To this end, we have carried out a content analysis of 148 carefully selected papers that address various aspects of RSCs in the domains of operations research and operations management. Our survey classifies and discusses the reviewed papers along numerous dimensions of interest, including the types of contract they incorporate and the research questions they address. We provide mathematical formulations of the two RSC structures that are most prevalent in research and in practice: (i) a wholesale-price contract that incorporates an added revenue-sharing mechanism; and (ii) a consignment contract with revenue sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic severely tested the resilience and robustness of supply chains for medically critical items and various common household goods. Severe and prolonged shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators in the United States have revealed vulnerabilities in the supply chains of such essential products in a time of need. Consequently, corporations have felt public pressure to rethink their supply chains. We begin this paper by examining the underlying causes of the prolonged shortages of critical products in the US as well as government’s and some companies’ initial response. Drawing from the lessons learned from the COVID pandemic, we propose a research agenda and opportunities to develop responsive supply chains to fight future pandemics. These opportunities revolve around measures that are intended to improve the supply chain responsiveness of essential products to combat future pandemics and other major public health emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An intertwined supply network (ISN) is an entirety of interconnected supply chains (SC) which, in their integrity secure the provision of society and markets with goods and services. The ISNs are open systems with structural dynamics since the firms may exhibit multiple behaviours by changing the buyer-supplier roles in interconnected or even competing SCs. From the positions of resilience, the ISNs as a whole provide services to society (e.g. food service, mobility service or communication service) which are required to ensure a long-term survival. The analysis of survivability at the level of ISN requires a consideration at a large scale as resilience of individual SCs. The recent example of coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak clearly shows the necessity of this new perspective. Our study introduces a new angle in SC resilience research when a resistance to extraordinary disruptions needs to be considered at the scale of viability. We elaborate on the integrity of the ISN and viability. The contribution of our position study lies in a conceptualisation of a novel decision-making environment of ISN viability. We illustrate the viability formation through a dynamic game-theoretic modelling of a biological system that resembles the ISN. We discuss some future research areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered new research areas in supply chain resilience. One of these new areas is viability. Viability extends the resilience understanding from performance-based assessment of firm’s responses to disruptions towards survivability of both supply chains and associated ecosystems not only during some short-term disruptions but also under conditions of long-term crises. To explore the state-of-the-art knowledge on methods, models, capabilities, and technologies of supply chain viability, we edited this important IJPR special issue. To introduce the special issue, we review the existing literature on supply chain viability, conceptualise seven major pillars of supply chain viability theory (i.e. viable supply chain design, viability in process planning and control, ripple effect, intertwined and reconfigurable supply networks, ecosystems, digital supply chain, and Industry 5.0), and establish some associated future research directions. The findings of this editorial paper, as well as the articles in the special issue, can be used by researchers and practitioners alike to consolidate recent advances and practices of viability in supply chain networks and lay the solid foundation for further developments in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supply chain finance (SCF) is an innovative solution dedicated to optimising financial flows in supply chains, and has drawn tremendous attention from academia and industry. Considering the ever-evolving nature of SCF, the existing literature reviews in this field are limited due to a lack of integration of recent findings. Motivated by the limitation, we attempt to fill this gap by investigating the novel achievements that have been reported in the current literature. By conducting a systematic literature review, we selected 99 qualified papers published between 2010 and the first quarter of 2021, and then used descriptive analysis to identify the literature characteristics, followed by in-depth content analysis. We synthesised nine research dimensions in the selected SCF literature. By virtue of comprehensive analysis, we illustrated the embedded mechanisms among all participants in SCF practices, updated the SCF research framework, summarised the most dominant methods applied in current research, made two classifications of the financial service providers (FSPs) and SCF instruments, and provided five future research directions. The significance of this paper lies in providing both a novel theoretical foundation for academic researchers and a practical guide for industrial practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In disrupted environments, the concept of digitalisation, viability, and sustainability have attracted considerable attention for the last decade. Digital, lean, and green capabilities have stimulated enormous advances in the development of industries. This paper discusses the current state of the art literature regarding sustainable and digital supply chain management performance. It reviews the relationship between digital technologies, lean, green, sustainability, and supply chain performance. A literature review approach, combined with a bibliometric analysis was adopted for robust field analysis. A set of 86 papers has been analysed and synthesised. The analysis of these papers has enabled the identification of the impact of Industry 4.0 technologies on the supply chain performance; the relationship of lean, green, and sustainability capabilities and digital supply chain; and the implications of the digital transformation of those capabilities. It presents a roadmap model integrating lean and green for viable, sustainable, and digital supply chain performance. The study is useful for academics and practitioners as it provides a roadmap framework and a solid background for integrating lean and green in the digital supply chain to achieve sustainable and viable performance as it outlines the necessity for incorporating the sustainability and viability performances in the digital supply chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a review of the development and use of multi-agent modelling techniques and simulations in the context of manufacturing systems and supply chain management (SCM). The objective of the paper is twofold. First, it presents a comprehensive literature review of current multi-agent systems (MAS) research applications in the field of manufacturing systems and SCM. Second, it aims to identify and evaluate some key issues involved in using MAS methods to model and simulate manufacturing systems. A variety of different MAS applications are reviewed in three different classified research areas: production design and development, production planning and control, and SCM. In presenting a detailed taxonomy of MAS applications, the paper describes MAS application domains from five different perspectives. The review suggests the MAS approach represents a feasible framework for designing and analysing real-time manufacturing operations, since the approach is capable of modelling different levels of agent behaviour and dynamical interactions. The paper also highlights a number of key issues which have to be taken into account in attempting to design MAS-based research paradigms for future applications in manufacturing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research interest in topics related to production and supply chain planning and control in engineer-to-order (ETO) environments has grown significantly over the last three decades. One of the strategically important and challenging decision areas for planning and control in ETO environments is estimating and quoting feasible delivery dates and assessing the feasibility of customer-imposed delivery dates, collectively referred to as delivery date setting (DDS). While DDS has received substantial attention in literature, research supporting the process in ETO companies is fragmented – lacking clear guidelines for industrial practice and gaps to guide future research on the topic. To address these issues, this study systematically reviews literature supporting DDS in ETO environments, identifying tools and practices proposed in the extant literature, and proposing an agenda for future research. Findings suggest that most of the research has focused on developing planning and decision-support tools for tactical capacity planning to support reliable DDS, however, with a noticeable lack of alignment with industrial decision-support needs of ETO environments. Furthermore, despite previous research emphasising the importance of high levels of coordination and formalisation in the DDS process, there is a lack of research to guide practitioners in achieving high levels of coordination and formalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digitalization is constantly altering company paradigms and expanding cross-border supply chain prospects. Maritime transportation plays an increasingly essential part in the global supply network. Since maritime shipping services need to exchange a huge number of papers and paperwork across numerous companies, the usage of a unified platform for inter-organisational communication and information sharing is required. To develop an integrative, adaptive, and intelligent container booking system, a multi-agent architecture is designed in this article. The proposed architecture will aid the maritime industry in establishing real-time information interchange between autonomous agents, shippers, freight forwarders, and shipping lines. The process outlined in this paper reveals how the agents communicate with one another to resolve underlying inconsistencies. With the multi-agent framework, the article also presents a container slot optimisation problem considering market segmentation, different booking periods, heterogeneous containers and port congestion scenarios. Using this model the managers can find the booking limit for each type of containers and accordingly they can accept or reject the incoming booking requests. Furthermore, a simulated case study is also provided to validate the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present evolution of production systems and markets is forcing producers, distributors and vendors to integrate their operations into large-scale networks of different services for managing materials and products, information and capitals, i.e. into a 'supply chain.' 'Integration' seems to be the new paradigm in organizing business lines, and 'supply chain management' seems to be the related organization approach that can help in managing interactions among concurrent firms as well as markets. However, supply chains are really complex systems, and their management is a really complex task in which the cooperation of several intelligent agents together and their finalization to common industrial goals need methods and procedures that are still either to be developed or, at the least, to be widely validated. The actual goal for an effective supply chain management is to obtain a good integration of all intelligent agents, such as to make each local strategy as cooperative as possible. This paper will analyse the basic concepts of supply chain management, with the aim of presenting a set of design criteria that could drive a designer in organizing more efficient management systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supply chain (SC) and operations management has been developed for decades under the fundamental assumption of continuous availability (with some temporary fluctuations and disruptions) of resources to satisfy demand. Under extreme shocks and long-lasting disruptions, SCs and operations face long-term shortages of components, energy, capital, and labour, as well as rapidly rising prices. These long-term resource shortages and risks of hyper-inflation pose novel and unexpected challenges potentially leading to global ripple effects. In this conceptual paper, we first analyse and categorise the available literature on SC and operations management with resource shortages. We then systemise some managerial implications of resource shortages and rising inflation, conceptualising some potential research directions which appeared or may appear in the settings of shortage economy. We conclude that the shortage economy provides a distinct and specific context which goes beyond the conventional problems under constrained or disrupted resources – i.e. the long-term resource shortages with simultaneous disruptions in labour, material, energy, and capital availability. This paper could be useful for researchers and practitioners alike to systemise potential impacts of a shortage economy on SCs and operations, and to navigate adaptation and recovery processes in a structured way to help society cope with deep uncertainties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary supply chains are facing myriad types of risks caused by unprecedented risk factors. This condition motivates us to develop a contemporary supply chain risk typology to help identify and monitor newly surfaced risks and reveal emerging topics and research collaborators to help foster impactful research in supply chain risk management (SCRM). In this paper, we applied the scholarly network analysis approach to critically analyse an extensive list of 345 SCRM journal articles published from 2011 to 2020. We address two research questions: What is the contemporary supply chain risk typology? How can SCRM research be mapped comprehensively in terms of its emerging topics and research collaborators? First, we propose a novel and holistic classification of supply chain risks based on three interconnected perspectives, namely the characteristics, the location, and the impact of risks. Second, we identify five emerging SCRM topics. In each of these emerging topics, we identify the prominent collaborators and the core author, the main research themes, commonly used approaches and theories, and potential research agendas for bridging the identified research gaps. This paper contributes to the field of SCRM by aiding scholars and practitioners in managing contemporary supply chains resiliently and sustainably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the ever-changing dynamics of today's global market place, it is necessary to examine upcoming future trends that may impact businesses. Supply chains are a valuable component of all business planning, and hence, they must be continuously monitored. This paper reflects on the views and contributions of various authors writing on the crucial issue of managing supply chains. Specifically, topics such as relationship quality, performance, integration, responsiveness, risk management strategies, agility, and incentive systems in supply chains are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines market entrance and pricing strategies for a remanufacturer with capital constraint and competition from an original equipment manufacturer. In the study, the remanufacturer is divided into two types, namely the H-type and L-type, and is assumed to have access to bank loans and equity financing to ease the capital constraint. With the Nash game, it is found that (i) if remanufacturing is costly, the remanufacturer will choose partial remanufacturing and not enter into the remanufacturing market until the equity financing ratio excesses a certain threshold. (ii) A H-type remanufacturer is more flexible in term of market entrance than a L-type remanufacturer. (iii) The remanufacturer's profit increases first and then decreases in the equity ratio. (iv) Equity ratio and interest rate have opposite effects on the pricing of the new and remanufactured products. Furthermore, with some research extensions, it is exhibited that the results and managerial implications developed in the paper hold well for different financing modes and the random demand setting, and hence are robust to a good extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supplier selection (SS) and order allocation (OA) are strategic decisions that have a substantial effect on a company's performance. However, order allocation is often neglected, since it results from supplier selection and is considered supplementary: little attention has been paid to its specific nature and complexity. Consequently, the authors conducted a systematic literature review specifically regarding order allocation methods. The research aimed to evaluate how often and when the issue has been dignified with an individual focus, independently of the supplier selection problem. This study conducted a comprehensive examination of the order allocation models and solutions, criteria for order quantity allocation, features of suppliers, items, planning periods, and demand most commonly considered in the literature. Finally, it aimed to discover whether supply chain configurations and trends have been considered in efforts to find a solution to the problem. The scientific contribution of this study is threefold: (i) to expand the review of scientific literature regarding order allocation models, (ii) to identify research gaps and highlight research opportunities, and (iii) to suggest a research agenda for the development of order allocation models according to the requirements of current trends in supply chain management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More practitioners are embracing blockchain technology to improve recycling performance. However, current research on the use of blockchain is mostly confined to general discussions on sustainable supply chains and circular economy, with limited studies specifically focusing on the recycling chain. This paper conducts a thorough content-based review of the literature related to the application of blockchain technology in the recycling chain with the objective to identify a conceptual framework. Although descriptive and thematic analyses show limited developments, blockchain technology can offer four distinct functions in the recycling chain: transparency, integration, behaviour channelisation, and service transformation. The adoption of blockchain in this area has technical, organisational, and environmental limitations that have not been overcome yet. In terms of benefits, blockchain technology improves recycling performance in terms of cost, dependability, flexibility, sustainability, and risk reduction. To summarise the findings, the paper proposes a novel conceptual framework for blockchain implementations in the recycling chain to support practitioners and guide scholars in further blockchain technology exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper explores the supply chain viability of medical equipment, an industry whose supply chain was put under a crucial test during the pandemic. This paper includes an empirical network-level analysis of supplier reachability under Random Failure Experiments (RFE) and Intelligent Attack Experiments (IAE). Specifically, this study investigates the effect of RFE and IAE across multiple tiers and scales. The global supply chain data was mined and analysed from about 45,000 firms with about 115,000 intertwined relationships spanning across 10 tiers of the backward supply chain of medical equipment. This complex supply chain network was analysed at four scales, namely: firm, country-industry, industry, and country. A notable contribution of this study is the application of a supply chain tier optimisation tool to identify the lowest tier of the supply chain that can provide adequate resolution for the study of the supply chain pattern. We also developed data-driven-tools to identify the thresholds for breakdown and fragmentation of the medical equipment supply chain when faced with random failures or different intelligent attack scenarios. The novel network analysis tools utilised in the study can be applied to the study of supply chain reachability and viability in other industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel quantitative approach and stochastic quadratic optimisation model to maintain supply chain viability under the ripple effect. Instead of viability kernel commonly used in the viability theory, this paper establishes the boundaries on acceptable production states for which the production can be continued under the ripple effect, with no severe losses. For a given implementable portfolio of controls, the boundaries on acceptable production trajectories associated with the two conflicting objectives, cost and customer service level are determined. The decision maker selects a viable production trajectory in-between the two boundary trajectories: the cost-optimal and the service-optimal. The selection depends on the decision maker preference, represented by a chosen weight factor in the optimised quadratic objective function that minimises weighted deviations from the cost-optimal and from the service-optimal production schedules under the ripple effect. The findings indicate that for the extreme values of the weight factor, the viable production trajectory is inclined toward the corresponding boundary trajectory and remains in-between the two boundaries, when both objectives are equally important. Keeping production trajectory in-between the two boundaries makes the supply chain more resilient to disruption risks, while the supply chain resilience diminishes as the production trajectory approaches a boundary trajectory. Then a more severe disruption may push the production outside the viability region and cause greater losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sales and operations planning (S&OP) has emerged as a planning approach that integrates tactical level decisions across functions and supply chains while aligning day-to-day operations with long-term strategy through these decisions. The extant knowledge on S&OP has evolved primarily based on the needs of mass production contexts, and applications of S&OP in engineer-to-order (ETO) contexts have not been explored by previous research. Arguing that the cross-functionally coordinated planning enabled by S&OP can improve the effectiveness of the challenging and competitively critical tendering process, this paper develops an S&OP framework for the tactical planning process design to support delivery date setting in ETO contexts. The paper adopts a systematic literature review approach for identifying the main tactical planning activities managers in ETO companies should consider while designing the S&OP process and the information inputs required for performing and coordinating these planning activities. The identified planning activities and planning inputs are synthesised to develop the proposed S&OP framework for delivery date setting in ETO contexts. The proposed framework can support managers in assessing which tactical planning activities are strategically essential in their respective companies and redesigning or reconfiguring existing planning processes to address the planning needs of their environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decision-making in supply chains is challenged by high complexity, a combination of continuous and discrete processes, integrated and interdependent operations, dynamics, and adaptability. The rapidly increasing data availability, computing power and intelligent algorithms unveil new potentials in adaptive data-driven decision-making. Reinforcement Learning, a class of machine learning algorithms, is one of the data-driven methods. This semi-systematic literature review explores the current state of the art of reinforcement learning in supply chain management (SCM) and proposes a classification framework. The framework classifies academic papers based on supply chain drivers, algorithms, data sources, and industrial sectors. The conducted review revealed a few critical insights. First, the classic Q-learning algorithm is still the most popular one. Second, inventory management is the most common application of reinforcement learning in supply chains, as it is a pivotal element of supply chain synchronisation. Last, most reviewed papers address toy-like SCM problems driven by artificial data. Therefore, shifting to industry-scale problems will be a crucial challenge in the next years. If this shift is successful, the vision of data-driven decision-making in real-time could become a reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, topics such as sharing economy and circular supply chains have emerged in production research and operations management. To explore them and tackle the associated challenges, we need to acquire a full understanding of decision-makers' strategic behaviours as well as the deployment of sophisticated analytical methods such as game theory. In this article, we concisely examine the meanings of sharing economy and circular supply chains in production research. We then introduce the featured papers of the special issue and highlight the major insights developed. Future research directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, data analytics in pharmaceutical supply chains has aroused much interest as it has the potential of enabling better supply and management of healthcare products by leveraging data generated by modern systems. This article presents the current state, opportunities, and challenges of data analytics in pharmaceutical supply chains through a systematic literature review surveying the Scopus, ScienceDirect, and Springerlink databases. 85 publications from 2012 to 2021 were reviewed and classified based on the research approach, objective addressed, and data used. The contributions of this paper are threefold: (i) it proposes a framework focused on challenges and data resources to assess the current state of data analytics in pharmaceutical supply chains; (ii) it provides examples of techniques exemplified that will serve as inspiring references; and (iii) it gathers and maps existing literature to identify gaps and research perspectives. Findings outlined that despite promising results from machine learning algorithms to address drug shortages and inventories optimisation, the various data resources have not yet been fully harnessed. Unstructured data have barely been used and combined with other types of information. New challenges related to green practices adoption and medicines supply during crises call for further applications of advanced analytics techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impacts of preferential credit policy, faced by capital constraint retailers, on coordinating the supply chain. Apart from different bank's and manufacturer's risk preferences, preferential credit is also affected by the retailers' exogenous collateral. We establish the preferential credit coordinating model (PCCM) to examine the optimal decisions and coordinate the supply chain with different financing channels, such as the preferential bank loan, preferential trade credit and portfolio credit. In this paper, we conclude some critical findings. Firstly, we find that the retailer's optimal would improve its optimal order quantity in the coordinated supply chain when he finances from a risk-pursuing bank or the manufacturer. Secondly, the retailer's financial cost would be shared with the manufacturer whether the retailer utilises preferential trade credit or bank financing channel. Thirdly, the capital constraint retailer would prefer preferential trade credit to the other financing methods for the purpose that the preferential trade credit could improve the coordinated supply chain's efficiency. Finally, we capture different impacts of collateral and risk preference on the supply chain. This article supplements the existing literature on supply chain finance with a preferential credit insight into the condition of the coordinated supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The circular economy (CE) has inspired the emergence of circular supply chains (CSCs) to reduce the environmental impacts of linear production systems. However, the transition to CSCs faces numerous challenges and uncertainties, which in turn impact the sustainability performance of CSCs. Following a systematic review process, this paper aims to identify the uncertainties that CSCs entail and the uncertainty management strategies which can be used to mitigate them to enhance their sustainability performance. A conceptual framework is proposed under which the current literature on CSCs, including 106 peer-reviewed English journal articles, is analysed and discussed based on CE practices, uncertainty management, and sustainability performance indicators. This framework offers guidance to CE and CSC scholars and supports practitioners and policymakers in being aware of the uncertainties related to the operationalisation and implementation of the CE in order to offer CE-inspired solutions. This paper also proposes a research agenda to investigate the integration of CE practices with supply chain management; the ways in which organisations manage different uncertainties simultaneously; and the effect of multiple uncertainty management strategies on firms' sustainability performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain is a disruptive technology that promises to embed visibility and trustworthiness in supply chains. This paper examines the perceived role of blockchain in improving SCM and profitability of organisations in the manufacturing industry. It establishes the blockchain benefits for the manufacturing industry using the process of scale development. The proposed hypotheses related to the indirect effects are based on the resource-based view of the firm. The conditional indirect effects for four organisational factors are tested. The research framework is operationalised based on data from 236 practitioners. The findings show that blockchain is perceived to drive improvement in six supply chain dimensions of the manufacturing industry. The breadth of organisation size and geographical dispersion moderate the mediation relationship between blockchain benefits and incremental profitability. Furthermore, the conditional indirect effects are found significant at mean and ±1σ values of integration intensity and IT integration. According to managers of manufacturing industry, blockchain can bring significant improvement in delivery reliability and mass customisation, which would result in increasing the profitability of the organisation. Organisations with low integration intensity, high IT integration and small size organisations are likely to be the early adopters of blockchain technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research on production and operations management and its linkage to environmental sustainability has seen growth in recent years. The International Journal of Production Research (IJPR) community of scholars has contributed to the advancement of this field. This paper provides an overview of how the research in IJPR has evolved alongside the social-environmental evolution. An overview of the literature of the past 55 years, especially more recent works, is provided. Future predictions of research topics and influences are introduced. Overall, this review found that the call for incorporating environmental sustainability into production research goes back for decades to the early years of IJPR publications. Recent work shows a broader perspective on production research expanding to inter-organisational, supply chain, research. This expanded focus is especially evident in environmental sustainability research. There is still a need and call for expanding the horizon of production and operations management research and environmental sustainability. Travelling the road less travelled is more difficult and complex, but the rewards at the end of this road are a healthy society and environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue including grey swan events in supply networks, supply chain disruption and projecting block relocations in container yards.

In order to eliminate the negative effects of customer strategic behaviour, retailers often adopt quick response or value-added services. While in a luxury market with conspicuous customers, retailers' pricing decisions of these two strategies become more complicated. This paper studies a supply chain with a retailer serving a mixture of conspicuous and ordinary strategic customers. We develop three models so that the retailer provides (i) neither quick response nor value-added services; (ii) only quick response; (iii) only value-added services. Subsequently, we analyse the impacts of conspicuous customers on quick response and value-added services by pricing and strategy comparisons. The model further extends to the situation including both strategies. The results show that, firstly, when the proportion is less than a threshold, the retailer should adopt a low price strategy, and vice versa. Besides, the quick response could induce the retailer to adopt high price while value-added services inhibit it. Secondly, the customer conspicuous behaviour can motivate retailers to provide quick response and inhibit their value-added services. Finally, by observing the retailer's decisions when they can adopt two strategies simultaneously, we find that the existence of quick response can amplify the benefits of value-added services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leading manufacturers have struggled to extend their green supply chain management (GSCM) efforts to low-tier (the second- and even lower-tier) suppliers, but how to motivate low-tier suppliers to be involved is still a big challenge. This paper develops a low-tier GSCM model for managing second-tier suppliers. Based on stakeholder theory and literature review, this paper develops 25 drivers for the ìnvolvement of second-tier suppliers in low-tier GSCM by a manufacturer. Using data collected from 29 second-tier suppliers of a leading automobile manufacturer, this study identified 17 critical drivers. The Grey-DEMATEL method was used to examine the cause-effect relationships to reveal prominent and elemental drivers. Based on the evaluation by managers from the manufacturer, one first-tier supplier, and six second-tier suppliers, comparative analysis of the DEMATEL results show that the manufacturer understands the prominent role of second-tier suppliers for its low-tier GSCM implementation while second-tier suppliers know little about the manufacturer's requirements and the first-tier supplier ignores the importance of internal drivers by second-tier suppliers. In the long term, the manufacturer considers itself as the crucial firm for low-tier GSCM, but according to first- and second-tier suppliers, promoting policies by the government such as GSCM-related demonstration projects are also elemental. This study provides directions for multi-tier GSCM studies on the theoretical development about how to effectively involve second-tier suppliers by unveiling the difference in the understanding of drivers among firms along supply chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-opetition is gaining increasing attention as a potentially useful form of inter-organisational collaboration model to improve firms' sustainable performance. However, limited previous studies have provided a clear substantive theory or offered empirical evidence for the process of sustainability-driven co-opetition. This paper explores how competing companies can collaborate in their supply chains (SCs) to achieve a higher level of sustainability performance by identifying drivers, facilitators and barriers of co-opetition. Based on two explorative case studies of co-opetition in the UK, the findings of this paper lead to a number of propositions and a theoretical framework for sustainability-driven co-opetition in SCs. This study contributes to the literature by providing a more in-depth understanding of co-opetition as a strategic capability for firms. This paper also proves the feasibility of a combined use of Resource-Based View and Network Theory perspectives in explaining a paradoxical inter-organisational relationship like co-opetition. A road map for sustainability-driven co-opetition in SCs is also provided as a heuristic decision model for practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applications of blockchain in supply chain management (SCM) have received extensive attention among academics and industrial practitioners. Most current blockchain-related review papers focus on the values, methodologies, barriers, trends, and challenges of blockchain applications in the supply chain (SC) context. Despite some papers discussing blockchain's role in SCs from a specific perspective, the existing review papers mainly concentrate on blockchain's influence on one of the three critical SC flows. Hence, this study comprehensively reviews 251 academic papers to capture the precise impacts of blockchain on the material, information, and money flows in SCM. Following the above analyses, a conceptual framework is put forward to accentuate blockchain's influence on SCM. By unveiling a comprehensive research landscape, this study offers valuable viewpoints and vital information for scholars and practitioners to better identify research frontiers and themes of blockchain applications in SCM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The boom in online sales has inspired the enthusiasm of manufacturers to include their own online sale channel with the retailer's offline channel. This paper investigates the impact of consumer transfer in a capital-constraint dual-channel supply chain and examines the optimal operational decision by considering a Stackelberg game. We capture the trade credit coordination mechanism of the supply chain facing with stochastic demand. The results show that trade credit contract would alleviate financial pressure of the capital-constraint retailer and achieve coordination in the dual-channel supply chain. Besides, the adoption of trade credit stimulates the ordering behaviour of retailers. However, by using trade credit, the default risk increases for the capital-constraint retailer compared to the retailer with sufficient capital. The manufacturer shares the risk with the retailer by trade credit in dual-channel supply chain. Furthermore, the effects of consumer transfer rates on the setting of the trade credit parameters are also presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industry 4.0 (I4.0) is a fast-evolving area of research, bringing together knowledge from multiple academic fields into creative solutions for manufacturing innovation. Despite the growing amount of published work covering a wide range of I4.0 areas, there has been relatively little research devoted to the organisational side of implementing I4.0. To address this gap, this systematic review paper used quantitative analysis by text-mining 97 articles from 2015 to 2021. The analysis identified eleven research streams, which were grouped into five levels, namely industry and firm, smart factory, data, human resources and supply chain. The research streams were then comprehensively reviewed and presented. For each stream, the paper presents a number of sub-themes and highlights important findings and areas that may require further development. We discuss three important research avenues in the organisational management literature: (1) the impact of the pandemic on the implementation of I4.0, (2) the tension between value creation and value protection during the implementation of 4.0 and (3) the relevance of a contingency approach during the implementation of I4.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional approaches for assessing supply chain vulnerability do not capture endogenous disruptions emanating from chain actors' decisions that might increase value chain vulnerability. These approaches adopt a reactive analytical explanation of vulnerability, rather than one that considers issues of feedback effects. To address this issue, this paper adopts a system dynamics modelling approach to identify the precursors of vulnerabilities in Ghana's cocoa value chain. The paper assesses the vulnerability levels of the cocoa value chain by adjusting the baseline values of several key parameters that can be influenced by chain actors. Results of the sensitivity analyses indicate that the precursors of vulnerability situated upstream of the cocoa value chain have varying impacts on chain vulnerability, but the same magnitude of effect on the vulnerability levels of chain actors. However, precursors of vulnerability that are situated midstream of the cocoa value chain have an unequal magnitude of effect on the vulnerability levels of chain actors. Results suggest that policies governing cocoa trading can become countervailing factors that obstruct the government's call for upgrading along the cocoa value chain. The system dynamics model presented here enables a proactive assessment of vulnerability which can facilitate collaborative planning among stakeholders in the value chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this editorial is to introduce the scope of the call for papers for the special issue. The submission statistics are then provided. A brief summary of the accepted papers is synthesised. The editorial ends with calls for future research in the areas of modularity and supply chain management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inventory pre-positioning is critical to quickly and efficiently responding to potential disasters. This paper considers a NPO (a relief agent) that requires stockpiling multiple products for responding multiple potential disaster events. By employing the multi-product newsvendor (MPNV) approach, this paper establishes a multiple relief materials’ storage model that aims to minimise the expected total cost of the NPO. Our model acknowledges that the occurrence of a disaster, the demand after a disaster and the donation after a disaster are uncertain. Given the no-budget constraint, this paper shows the implicit conditions that determine the optimal solutions; for the case with a budget constraint, the paper develops a two-binary iterative approach to solve the model with a budget constraint. Numerical examples are conducted to investigate the impacts of model parameters. The paper further proposes a flexible storage policy, in which the NPO and the supplier jointly stockpile relief materials. The optimal solution of the case with the flexible stockpiling policy is also characterised. Moreover, this paper shows the policy implementation can simultaneously increase the performance of the NPO and the supplier; and both players of the supply chain prefer that the supplier solely holds all inventory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demand forecasting is a fundamental component of efficient supply chain management. An accurate demand forecast is required at several different levels of a supply chain network to support the planning and decision-making process in various departments. In this paper, we investigate the performance of bottom-up, top-down and optimal combination forecasting approaches in a supply chain. We first evaluate their forecast performance by means of a simulation study and an empirical investigation in a multi-echelon distribution network from a major European brewery company. For the latter, the grouped time series forecasting structure is designed to support managers' decisions in manufacturing, marketing, finance and logistics. Then, we examine the forecast accuracy of combining forecasts of these approaches. Results reveal that forecast combinations produce forecasts that are more accurate and less biased than individual approaches. Moreover, we develop a model to analyse the association between time series characteristics and the effectiveness of each approach. Results provide insights into the interaction among time series characteristics and the performance of these approaches at the bottom level of the hierarchy. Valuable insights are offered to practitioners and the paper closes with final remarks and agenda for further research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, stochastic optimisation of CVaR is applied to maintain risk-averse viability and improve resilience of a supply chain under propagated disruptions. In order to establish the risk-averse boundaries on supply chain viability space, two stochastic optimisation models are developed with the two conflicting objectives: minimisation of Conditional Cost-at-Risk and maximisation of Conditional Service-at-Risk. Then, the risk-averse viable production trajectory between the two boundaries is selected using a stochastic mixed integer quadratic programming model. The proposed approach is applied to maintain the supply chain viability in the smartphone manufacturing and the results of computational experiments are provided. The findings indicate that when the decision-making is more risk-aversive, the size of the viability space between the two boundaries is greater. As a result, more room is available for selecting viable production trajectories under severe disruptions. Moreover, the larger is viability space, the higher is both worst-case and average resilience of the supply chain. Risk-neutral, single-objective decision-making may reduce the supply chain viability. A single-objective supply chain optimisation which moves production to the corresponding boundary of the viability space, should not be applied under severe disruption risks to avoid greater losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A well-configured spare parts supply chain (SC) can reduce costs and increase the competitiveness of spare parts retailers. A structured method for configuring spare parts SCs should be used to determine whether to centralise or decentralise inventory management, also considering hybrid configurations. Moreover, such a method should define whether or not to switch the production of spare parts from Conventional Manufacturing (CM) technologies to Additive Manufacturing (AM) ones. Indeed, AM is considered the next revolution in the field of spare parts, and the adoption of AM technologies strongly affects the characteristics of SCs. However, the choice between centralisation and decentralisation is not the subject of much scientific research, and it is also not clear when AM would be the preferable manufacturing technology for spare parts. This paper aims to assist managers and practitioners in determining how to design their spare parts SCs, thus defining both the spare parts SC configuration and the manufacturing technology to adopt through the development of a decision support system (DSS). The proposed DSS is a user-friendly decision tree, and, for the first time, it allows comparison of the total costs of SCs characterised by different degrees of centralisation with both AM and CM spare parts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a white-box perspective that portrays a supply chain delivery process as a network of related activities which remains to be improved. It addresses a critical disadvantage of supply chain delivery performance models, namely considering a delivery process as a whole and ignoring characteristics and relationships between activities in the delivery process. A delivery process is modeled using the Graphical Evaluation and Review Technique based on the characteristic function (CF-GERT). Based on the CF-GERT model, a framework for applying managerial effort to activities to improve overall delivery performance is proposed. Then, particle swarm optimization (PSO) based on the penalty function is used to solve the delivery performance improvement framework. Finally, a numerical case shows how applying efforts to activities can effectively improve delivery performance and demonstrates the influence of several parameters on the related costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Configuring supply chains (SCs) is critical to spare parts retailers' success, entailing two key aspects: stock deployment into distribution centres (DCs) (i.e. inventory centralisation or decentralisation) and stock supply in each DC (how many spare parts to supply and how often). Given the unpredictability of spare parts demand, stock deployment and supply policies should be regularly reviewed, adapting to fluctuations in customer needs. A viable way to do this is to adopt a multi-criteria ABC criticality classification. However, the multi-criteria ABC criticality classification has often been used to plan stock supply policies in a single DC, but only once to plan spare parts deployment. Nevertheless, the available literature methodology presents major limitations, being not applicable in real companies. Therefore, this paper provides a novel methodology, called SP-LACE, which first reviews the configuration of spare parts SCs based on a multi-criteria criticality classification. Then, allows, for the first time, to evaluate the economic benefits of the reviewed SC configuration. SP-LACE was tested on two case studies and compared with the literature methodology. The results indicate that it provides economic benefits (in terms of total SC cost), overcoming the limitations of the literature methodology and ensuring high service levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As instability becomes the norm, supply chain management is becoming increasingly complex and critical. As a result, supply chain managers must adapt to complex situations. Managing instability is a key expectation for these managers. One way to help them to manage this instability is to study resilience. Resilience is related to in the literature as the ability of a system to resist, adapt and recover from disruptions. Measuring and controlling supply chain resilience has therefore become a key issue for managers, especially in a context of instability. In 2013, the World Economic Forum [2013. Global Risks 2013. Davos, Switzerland: World Economic Forum] highlighted in its study, this priority for the surveyed companies to master this concept of resilience. To address this need, this paper presents an innovative approach to disruption and resilience management based on physics principles. It considers disruptions as forces that impact supply chain performance. These forces are created as a result of changes in the internal or external attributes of the supply chain. In this approach, supply chain performance is represented and visualised as a physical trajectory modelled in the framework of its performance indicators. Thus, disturbances are considered as forces that displace and deviate the supply chain's performance trajectory in its performance framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, e-commerce retailers have had trouble satisfying the growing demand because of limited warehouse capacity constraints. Fortunately, an on-demand warehousing system has emerged as a new alternative to mitigate warehouse capacity issues. In recent years, several studies have focused on the supply chain problem considering on-demand warehousing. However, there is no study that deals simultaneously with inherent uncertainties and the property of commitment, which is the main advantage of on-demand warehousing. To fill these research gaps, this paper presents an e-commerce supply chain network design problem considering an on-demand warehousing and decisions for commitment periods. We propose the two-stage stochastic programming model that captures the inherent uncertainties to formulate the presented problem. We solve the proposed model utilizing sample average approximation combined with the Benders decomposition algorithm. Of particular note, we develop a method to generate effective initial cuts for improving the convergence speed of the Benders decomposition algorithm. Computational results show that the developed method could find an effective feasible solution within a reasonable computational time for problems of practical size. Furthermore, we show the significant cost-saving effects, based on experiment results, that occur when an on-demand warehousing system is used for designing supply chain networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, topics such as sharing economy and circular supply chains have emerged in production research and operations management. To explore them and tackle the associated challenges, we need to acquire a full understanding of decision makers' strategic behaviours as well as the deployment of sophisticated analytical methods such as game theory. In this article, we concisely examine the meanings of sharing economy and circular supply chains in production research. We then introduce the featured papers of the special issue and highlight the major insights developed. Future research directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether from government policies, customer expectations or personal beliefs, there is increasing pressure on firms and their supply chains to adopt sustainable practices. Manufacturing companies are particularly targeted, for example, to reduce CO2 emissions, offer sustainable products, etc. Research in this field has significantly increased in recent years. Most research states the importance of collaboration with upstream and downstream entities as a critical success factor when aiming for a sustainable supply chain and proposes various collaborative mechanisms (CMs) to enable firms in the implementation of a sustainability-oriented initiative. The goal of this paper is to investigate the role of collaboration in these initiatives and explore the proposed CMs via a systematic literature review method. A total of 404 articles were reviewed and the multitude of CMs proposed in the literature were classified into seven categories: relationship management, contractual and economic practices, joint practices, technological and information sharing practices, governance practices, assessment practices, and supply chain design. This systematic mapping of the field provides an in-depth view of the current state of research as well as research gaps. It also intends to help practitioners by highlighting the role played by these mechanisms in four phases of sustainable supply chain deployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the broad range of literature related to sustainable manufacturing published in theInternational Journal of Production Research(IJPR) over the past 50 years. It establishes research frontiers and contributions in the topic of sustainable manufacturing and the related impact to environmental sustainability. With the growing concern of the environmental impact of factors such as pollution and waste, the research areas of sustainable manufacturing and efficient resource utilisation have become significantly more important over the last decade. Whereas early papers focused on safety, workplace, design, and process improvements, research today focuses on ergonomics, intelligence, global manufacturing, environmental challenges, design for sustainability, product life cycle management, and green supply chain management. The paper also briefly surveys existing approaches and identifies commonly used analytical tools and methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Disruption risks in supply chain management have a great negative influence on the performance of supply chain members. Therefore, the field of supply chain disruption (SCD) has received increasing attention on mitigating the risks and improving the supply chain performance. This paper presents a comprehensive bibliometric overview and visualisation of the field of SCD based on 1,310 publications derived from the core collection of the Web of Science. The influential authors, organisations, and SCD keywords are discussed in detail based on some visualisation tools. Then, the leading publications and main clusters of SCD are identified to find out the key research topics based on citation analysis and reference co-citation analysis. The paper will be a helpful resource for researchers and practitioners who are interested in the field of SCD to capture the current research hotspots and potential research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]