Project description:In this paper, we simulate the economic loss resulting from supply chain disruptions triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) in 2011, applying data from firm-level supply chains and establishment-level attributes to an agent-based model. To enhance the accuracy of the simulation, we extend data and models in previous studies in four ways. First, we identify the damage to production facilities in the disaster-hit regions more accurately by using establishment-level census and survey data and geographic information system (GIS) data on the damages caused by the GEJE and subsequent tsunami. Second, the use of establishment-level data enables us to capture supply chains between non-headquarter establishments in disaster-hit regions and establishments in other regions. Third, we incorporate the effect of power outages after the GEJE on production reduction, which exacerbated the effect of the supply chain disruption, particularly in the weeks immediately after the GEJE. Finally, our model incorporates sectoral heterogeneity by employing sector-specific parameters. Our findings indicate that the extended method can significantly improve the accuracy of predicting the domestic production after the GEJE, particularly due to the first three improvements utilizing various data sources, not because of the use of more sector-specific parameters. Our method can be applied to predict the economic effect of future disasters, such as the Nankai Trough earthquake, on each region more precisely.
Project description:Since it is an important human need and many organizations are involved in the value chain, the agricultural food supply chain is exposed to various risks that arise naturally or through human actions. This study aims to develop the application of a quality function deployment approach to increase the resilience of the food supply chain by understanding customer needs and logistical risks in the food supply chain. In-depth studies with empirical analysis were conducted to determine the importance of customer needs, food supply chain risks, and actions to improve supply chain resilience of SMEs in the agri-food industry. The result shows that the top three customer needs are "attractive, bright color", "firm texture" and "fresh smell". The top three risks in the agri-food supply chain are "improper storage," "Harvest Failure" and "Human Resource Risks" and the top three resilience actions are "continuous training," "preventive maintenance," and "supply chain forecasting." The implications of this study are to propose an idea that broadens the perspective of supply chain resilience in the agri-food industry by incorporating the needs of customers in considering how to mitigate the existing risks to the satisfaction of customers, and it also highlights the relatively low skill and coordination of the workforce in agri-food supply chains.
Project description:This study aims to empirically investigate the effect of blockchain technology (BCT) adoption on supply chain resilience (SCR), with the mediating role of supply chain integration (SCI) and the crucial effect of environmental dynamism (ED) as a moderator. Based on data collected from firms operating in the automotive industry in India, the proposed model was tested using Partial Least Squares Structural Equations Modelling (PLS-SEM) via SmartPLS software. The empirical results showed a positive effect of BCT on SCI, which in turn affects SCR. Importantly, SCI acts as a full mediator in the BCT-SCR relationship, which is moderated by ED, that is, the effect of BCT on SCR via SCI is strong when ED is high. This study offers the groundwork for operationalizing BCT in a supply chain context. It also contributes to SCR research by investigating how SCI mediates the effect of BCT on SCR. In addition, this study found a moderating effect of ED on the relationship between BCT and SCI. These results provide insights to auto manufacturers on ways to enhance SCR and ensure safe supply chain operations.
Project description:In this paper, we examine a real-world case related to the consumer product supply chain to analyze the value of supply chain coordination under the condition of moral hazard. Because of the characteristics of a buyback contract scheme employed in the supply chain, the supplier company's sales department encourages retailers to order more inventory to meet their sales target, whereas retailers pay less attention to their inventory level and leftovers at the end of the season. This condition induces moral hazard problems in the operation of the supply chain, as suppliers suffer from huge returns of leftover inventory. This, in turn, is related to the obsolescence of returned inventory, even with penalty terms in the contract for the return of any leftovers. In this study, we show under the current buyback-based supply chain operation, the inventory levels of both the supplier and retailers exceed customer demand and develop vendor-managed inventory (VMI) system with base stock policy to remove any mismatch of supply and demand. A comparison of both systems shows that through the proper coordination of supply chain operations, both suppliers and retailers can gain additional benefits while providing proper services to end customers.
Project description:ObjectiveThis proposed scoping review aims to examine studies assessing the impact of drug shortages on population-level drug utilization trends. The objectives of this review are to a) assess which drugs have been studied and describe associated drug characteristics, b) determine jurisdictions and healthcare settings that have conducted these studies, and c) describe how changes in drug use and the extent of shortage impacts are reported in literature.IntroductionDrug shortages continue to impair drug access and delivery of quality care across the world. However, the impact of drug supply disruptions on availability and drug use are understudied in current literature. This proposed scoping review will identify this gap and inform future research initiatives aimed at determining the real-world impacts of drug shortages.Inclusion criteriaPublished and unpublished observational studies reporting on the effects of drug supply chain disruptions (shortages, discontinuations, and safety-based withdrawals) on consequent utilization trends faced by pharmaceutical products (i.e. prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, vaccines, therapy products, pharmaceutical solutions). Literature reviews, meta-analyses, randomized control trials, case series, case reports, and opinion pieces will be excluded.MethodsThe search strategy will combine two key search concepts: drug shortages and drug utilization. The search will be conducted in MEDLINE and EMBASE. This will be followed by an extensive grey literature search in grey literature databases, targeted websites and Google. Furthermore, reference lists of included articles will be searched. Articles will be independently screened, selected and extracted by two reviewers. Data will be descriptively analyzed and presented in tables.Trial registrationReview registration number: Open Science Framework, https://osf.io/2p6e5.
Project description:BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted global health supply chains including manufacturing, storage, and delivery of essential medicines, testing kits, personal protective equipment, and laboratory reagents. We sought to document how pandemic impacted the procurement, prices, and supply chain of medical products in Zimbabwe.MethodsWe conducted semistructured in-depth key informant interviews with 36 health system stakeholders in Zimbabwe involved in medicine procurement. Respondents included pharmacists, regulatory officers, and procurement and supply chain management professionals from public and private sectors.ResultsBefore the COVID-19 pandemic, respondents described experiencing long-standing resource constraints, medicine shortages, foreign currency shortages, and supply chain inefficiencies. The pandemic exacerbated this situation due to supply constraints, export restrictions, medicine shortages, and movement restrictions that disrupted logistical and stock management systems. Competitive bidding and tendering processes experienced reduced participation by international suppliers. Significant price increases were initially observed among internationally shipped medicines and for personal protective equipment to cover additional freight costs. COVID-19 pandemic impacts were moderated by reduced patient demand and lower health services utilization, resulting in fewer supply shocks and less price volatility. Further, health system adaptations such as switching treatment regimens, modifying dispensing schedules based on stock availability, redistributing stock of medicines among facilities, and new service delivery models such as integrated outreach services helped ensure continued patient access to medicines.ConclusionsOur findings highlight the need for policies that ensure continuity in access to health services and medical products, even during a pandemic, by avoiding blanket restrictions on medical product exports and imports. Pooled procurement, especially at regional and global levels, with long-term service agreements may help achieve greater resiliency to supply and price shocks from supply chain disruptions. Interventions across manufacturing, trade, and regulatory policy and service delivery models are also needed for supply chain resiliency.
Project description:Nowadays, the world is in turmoil, climate and environmental problems are prominent, the import and export of fresh agricultural products are restricted, etc. The impact of the growing demand for fresh agricultural products and healthy lifestyle choices, and fresh agricultural products are essential for people's daily life, which are perishable, fragile, seasonal, and other unstable factors. Therefore, when the fresh produce supply chain faces various pressures and difficulties, how to enhance the resilience of the supply chain against various problems and risks with flexible and multi-dimensional strategies and methods has become the focus of extensive attention. This kind of problem is a typical contradictory problem, and previous studies have failed to achieve good results. In this paper, based on extenics, we are able to one-dimensionalise the multi-dimensional contradictory problems and multi-dimensionalise the one-dimensional contradictory problems to solve such problems in a scientific and effective way. Firstly, taking fresh agricultural products supply chain enterprise M as the research object, we constructed the fresh agricultural products supply chain enterprise toughness system and identified the toughness state of each index. Secondly, we found the low-evaluation toughness indexes that need to be solved and constructed a extension model of incompatible problems of enterprise toughness. Thirdly, we analysed the objectives and conditions of toughness incompatible problems of fresh agricultural products supply chain enterprises numerically and quantitatively, and then, with the objective of toughness improvement, we analyzed the correlation of the condition basic-elements of incompatible problems and carried out extension transformations. Again, the objectives and conditions of the incompatible problems of fresh produce supply chain enterprises are analysed numerically and quantitatively, and with toughness enhancement as the objective, the correlation analysis and extension transformation of the condition basic-elements of the incompatible problems are implemented to generate the set of toughness enhancement strategies that can solve the incompatible problems in a multidimensional and scientific way. Finally, the optimal toughness enhancement strategies are selected through the superiority evaluation and composed into a new strategy to enhance the toughness of the fresh produce supply chain. Combined with extenics calculations and screening, a new strategy for supply chain resilience enhancement of fresh agricultural products was finally formed. The existing problems are solved from six aspects: product supply type, product demand, product supply efficiency, human resource quantity, production and processing equipment, and logistics guarantee ability. It provides a certain reference significance for the fresh agricultural products supply chain toughness enhancement, and helps enterprises to strengthen their competitiveness and sustainability through the enhancement of toughness.
Project description:Economic shocks from COVID-19, coupled with ongoing US-China tensions, have raised debates around supply chain (or global value chain) organisation, with China at the centre of the storm. However, quantitative studies that consider the global and economy-wide impacts of rerouting supply chains are limited. This study examines the economic and emissions impacts of reorganising supply chains, using Australia-China trade as an example. It augments the Hypothetical Extraction Method by replacing traditional Input-Output analysis with a Computable General Equilibrium analysis. The estimation results demonstrate that in both exports and imports, a trade embargo between Australia and China - despite being compensated for by alternative supply chains-will cause gross domestic production losses and emissions increases for both countries and the world overall. Moreover, even though all other economies gain from the markets left by China, many of them incur overall gross domestic production losses and emission increases. The finding that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and India may also suffer from an Australia-China trade embargo, despite a gain in trade volume, suggests that no country should add fuel to the fire. The results suggest that countries need to defend a rules-based trading regime and jointly address supply chain challenges.
Project description:Based on a three-stage stackelberg dynamic game analysis, this paper constructs a product quality control strategy model for three types of distribution channels (direct channel, retail channel and mixed channel) in a three-echelon supply chain, which is composed of one manufacturer, one retailer and the final customer. This paper studies how to design a distribution channel strategy and provides a product quality control strategy. Furthermore, this paper analyzes three types of distribution channels strategy in the context of how they influence a manufacturer's product quality decision and quality prevention strategy, a retailer's product pricing decision and quality inspection strategy, and the final customer's product demand decision. We compare the manufacturer's product quality level, quality prevention effort level, wholesale price, direct sale price and the retailer's quality inspection effort level, retail price in three types of distribution channels and determine the manufacturer's and retailer's expected profits function and the final customer's consumer surplus. In addition, we introduce the distribution channels demand elasticity ratio to analyze the influence of determining the product quality control strategy. Most importantly, we conduct a numerical sample analysis that will prove the model's effectiveness and indicate a specific application in practice.