unit8_assigment-db8015.xlsx

1. Article Summaries

Enter Project Description: For this project I will focus on how technologies like enterprise resource planning ERP can be used in the risk management in supply chain management. More often risks like delay in the shipments or the shipment getting lost have huge ramifications to both the customers and the business. Through ERP technology some of these risks are likely to be reduced by installing sensors in the shipments that will be able to notify both the shipping company and the customer of any theft or sudden changes in the destinated route of the product. Also it will be possibel to constantly monitor any environmental conditions that are likely to pose a threat to the shipment and this will be done through electronic data interchange which is an application of the ERP technology.
APA CITATION TYPE Prac-Sch EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THE EXISTENCE OF THE PROBLEM EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THE GAP IN PRACTICE EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THE PROJECT NEED
Boyens, J., Paulsen, C., Moorthy, R., Bartol, N., & Shankles, S. A. (2015). Supply chain risk management practices for federal information systems and organizations. NIST Special Publication, 800(161), 1. Scholarly In the research done by (Boyens et al. 2015) which concentrated in the United States department of Homeland security, their research found that close to $28 million dollars are spent annually in mitigating risks associated with the intelligence software that are procured by the Homeland security at times never arrive in the right quantity and quality specifications. In 2014 alone the federal information systems and organizations of the U.S reported an increase in counterfeit products in the U.S which is attributed to supply chain inefficiencies that had heavily impacted on the cost of running businesses. From the article there is clearly a need to come up with an integral software like the ERP that will be able to predict and constantly monitor shipment iinformations such as any changes in the direction of the shipment route, theft and also verification of the quality and quantity of the products in transit. This will enable instances of many businesses and customers incurring huge loses due to probably receiving wrong shipment or of poor quality reduce. In addition, this gap in the risk managemnt has had heavy economic implications making certain companies and business to scaled down their operations due to high operations costs associated with high risks in the supply chain management. In 2016, the United States chamber of commerce reported that averagely 7.5% of startup companies are collapsing due to the high risks in some of the supply chain management systems such companies are adopting (Boyens et al. 2015). Also in 2016 Starbucks coffee Company through the company's CIO indicated that due to high operational cost incurred in certain outlets of the company like in Columbia due to siting complicated supply chain especially in the delivery of the coffee berries depended on by the giant coffee company (Boyens et al. 2015). Hence these risks of delay, misplacement of shipments is costing companies millions of shillings in coming up with proper mitigation measures.
Jüttner, U., Peck, H., & Christopher, M. (2003). Supply chain risk management: outlining an agenda for future research. International Journal of Logistics: Research and Applications, 6(4), 197-210. Practitioner (P) Currently there is inadequate research done on how to improve risks management in the supply chain especially with continuous technological advancement. The current research done by (Jüttner, Peck & Christopher, 2003) indicates 25% of the global economies are likely to crash if proper logistics management aren't addressed. The gap in research and updated literature on how technology can be applied in supply chain is really making many businesses to act on insuficient information regarding how to streamline and improve the supply chain. According to the global statistics 4 out of 5 startup companies don't have research centers to further their supply literature. Research done by the london school of economics reveal that almost 75% of global giant companies rely heavily on continued research to improve their businesses effeciency and that includes coming up with cutting edge technologies to streamline their supply chain systems as well as improving quality and reliability of business operations.
Vachon, S. (2007). Green supply chain practices and the selection of environmental technologies. International Journal of Production Research, 45(18-19), 4357-4379. Practitioner (P) Most supply chain technologies currently in use are not environmentall friendly in the sense that they do not promote business effeciency and sustainability. World Health Organization during the 21st UN General assembly held in 1999 accused manufacturing and logistics companies of largely contrinbuting environmental pollution. During the session the then WHO director general tabled a report which ranked business supply chain 35th out of 100 major business facillitors of pollution transfer. With the global pollutions levels skyrocketing there is need to adopt green technologies in the supply chain management to reduce risks of pollution transfer from one point of production to the point of consumption. With green technologies which will only ensure that pollution free products and services are allowed to transact in any given supply chain system, instances of constant surge in the risks associated iwith supply chain activities are likely to be reduced by the green technology integration.
Blos, M. F., Quaddus, M., Wee, H. M., & Watanabe, K. (2009). Supply chain risk management (SCRM): a case study on the automotive and electronic industries in Brazil. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal. Practitioner (P) In the Journal (Blos, Quaddus, Wee & Watanabe, 2009) indicated that many automotive and electronic industries in Brazil especial companies located in the Sao Paulo are having on average 3 to 5 litigation cases filled in court by various customers whose products were never delivered or some delivered but in poor conditions. Also the journal site supply chain ineffeciency as the main cause of all these legal issues been filled againts majority of the company in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Majority of these companies havent incorporated technology in their supply chain systems which do not comprehensively analysize various risks that are likely to be encountered in using a particular supply chain model. This had led to continued dissatisfaction of customers with the services and products offered by companies in the automobile industries in Brazil. As accordingt to the World Bank report of 2013 on the ease of doing business with certain countries in south America, the reported highlighted that companies in Brazil need to hid the practice of adoption of technology like various ERP software inorder to boast the effeciency and reliability of their global supply chain. Otherwise the automobile and electronic industries in Brazil fear facing turf competition especially in the global market.
Giaglis, G. M., Minis, I., Tatarakis, A., & Zeimpekis, V. (2004). Minimizing logistics risk through real‐time vehicle routing and mobile technologies. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management. Ho, W., Zheng, T., Yildiz, H., & Talluri, S. (2015). Supply chain risk management: a literature review. International Journal of Production Research, 53(16), 5031-5069. Practitioner (P) Lack of real-time tracking technologies of shipments in the supply chain leads to instances of increased risks associated with product theft, delay or re-routing. And this has resulted in increase in mitigation costs of operations of businesses and financial losses to customers. New York Times article in 2011 reported that many companies in the 3rd world countries especially those that heavily rely on logistics to be losing close to one eighth of their annual gross revenue to theft of lost shipments and also compensation costs for customer on products lost or damaged along transit. Therefore, should technology integrated in monitoring and tracking of shipment then risks prevalence in the supply chain is likely to be greatly reduced by close to be 11.5% as argued by the Journal wriiten by (Giaglis, Minis, Tatarakis & Zeimpekis, 2004).
Richey, R. G., & Autry, C. W. (2009). Assessing interfirm collaboration/technology investment tradeoffs. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 53(16), 5031-5069. Scholarly Lack of collaboration or technology tradeoff between nations and even companies have led to continued risks associated with supply chain like shipments delay and possible damage. Some countries and even business are doing well in using technology to minimize risks associated with delays, damages and even loss of shipment in the supply chain network. Nokia company has continued to suffer especially in getting enough grip in the global market as far as smartphone technology is concerned yet companies like Apple and Huewei are doing extremely well (Richey & Autry, 2009). This lack of collaboration or technology sharing has led to high risks level associated with supply chain networks. Technological collaboration for instance between Huawei and Google has enabled both companies streamline their supply chain and reduce risks associated with supply chain management (Richey & Autry, 2009). And this saw Huawei win the corvated smartphone award of the year in 2019.
Saberi, S., Kouhizadeh, M., Sarkis, J., & Shen, L. (2019). Blockchain technology and its relationships to sustainable supply chain management. International Journal of Production Research, 57(7), 2117-2135. Scholarly Sustainability of many supply chain management has been a challenge due to lack of technologies like blockchain which can resist large variations in the supply chain management models used by many companies. Blockchain technology has proven to be very resilient especially when it comes to ensuring sustainability in the management software. Should this sustainability be incorporated in the supply chain then risk management will be greatly improved. In 2019 global trends magazine listed bitcoin technology as one of the most upcoming technologies which are likely to better business operations. This was seen by the Wall street companies that realized a double digit increase in their revenues as a result of adopting blockchain technology in suply chain management.
Davila, A., Gupta, M., & Palmer, R. (2003). Moving procurement systems to the internet:: The adoption and use of e-procurement technology models. European management journal, 21(1), 11-23. Practitioner (P) Long and procedural procurement produceres have habored the effecieny of many supply chain networks in the world (Davila, Gupta & Palmer, 2003). According to the journal only about 35% of giant companies operate their procurement systems online while the rest use backdated technologies which only increases risks associated with supply chain management. In majority of the companies traded on the wall street especially in the manufacturing industries haven't adopted the blockchain technology and this makes streamlining their supply chain systems very difficult (Davila, Gupta & Palmer, 2003). Also some claim that the stability of blockchain technologies is still very unrealiable. Adoption of blockchain technology stands to improve the procurement systems particulaly in moving all the procurement procuderes online as this helps in reducing paper work and delay time.
Clauson, K. A., Breeden, E. A., Davidson, C., & Mackey, T. K. (2018). Leveraging blockchain technology to enhance supply chain management in healthcare. Blockchain in healthcare today. Scholarly Healthcare industry is one of the sectors which heavily rely on supply chain management especially in medical supply delivery (Clauson, Breeden, Davidson & Mackey, 2018). Currently many healthcare centres are facing acute shortages in the supply of medical equipment and drugs to due to unncesary delay in the supply chain networks. Also leveraging block chain would help in realizing improvement in the global health supply chain networks. World Health Organization (WHO) in 2017 global epidermic report highlighted to need for prompt intervention by tech companies in streamlining global supply chain of health industry so as to improve the logistics systems involved in the medical equipment and drugs aquisition (Clauson, Breeden, Davidson & Mackey, 2018). Adoption of blockchain technology stands to improve the procurement systems particulaly in moving all the procurement procuderes online as this helps in reducing paper work and delay time.
Gunasekaran, A., Lai, K. H., & Cheng, T. E. (2008). Responsive supply chain: a competitive strategy in a networked economy. Omega, 36(4), 549-564. Scholarly Proper invoicing has still remain a challenge to many logistics companies and also having a responsive type of supply chain has remained a big problem in many middle class economy (Gunasekaran, Lai & Cheng, 2008). And this has been made worse by the competitive nature of the global market which has made many companies continually operate on high operation costs. Global trends put supply chain responsiveness at 37.5% as reported by the journal especially in the middle income economies and this has beendue to the increased produceral practices that make supply management chain more complex in nature.

2. Self-Assess

Self-Assessment: Self-assess the completeness of your matrix addressing each of the following: (a) Balance of scholar and practitioner articles; (b) Currency of articles; (c) Details of individual article summaries; (d) Across the full array of articles: (1) Quality of evidence to support the existence of a problem; (2) Quality of evidence to support a gap in practice; (3) Quality of evidence to demonstrate the need for a project.
From the matrix it can be said that their seems to be a disconnect between the scholar and the practitioner articles since some of the suggestion put across by the scholar articles are rarely incorporated in the practical aspect. This makes the suggestions as good as just words. When it comes to currency of the articles, most of the articles are current documenting current practices and inconsistencies in those practices in the supply chain. Some of the articles are very detailled while others are abit shallow due to currency of the knowldege or technology for instance in blockchain technology the detailed application in supply chain are just based on simulational results. The quality of evidence to support the existence of the problems have been brought out well. And so is the evidence to support a gap in practice and demonstrating the need for a project.