Natural risk behaviour

10/21/2011 at 11:31 am | Martijn Lofvers | No Comments

What is the company behaviour to risk and danger? Natural disasters in last years have made companies more and more aware of supply chain risks. The earthquake and the following tsunami in Japan made clear where risks of supply of components...

Free special Inventory Optimization on the iPad

09/27/2011 at 10:24 am | Martijn Lofvers | No Comments

The new European quarterly magazine Supply Chain Movement published a free special about Inventory Optimization. This edition features insightful articles and international case studies about inventory management in order to reduce working capital. ...

Re-evaluating the supply chain post-Japanese earthquake

09/5/2011 at 5:06 pm | Martijn Lofvers | No Comments

Japan’s devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident have served as a wake-up call across the world to show just how fragile global supply can be. With almost 9% of the world’s economic output coming from Japan, these events have had a...

The best Movies and TV Series about supply chains

08/3/2011 at 2:24 pm | Martijn Lofvers | No Comments

What are the best Movies and TV Series about supply chains? And why? What is the connection with supply chains? And in which Movies and TV Series is the development of logistics into supply chain management perfectly reflected? According to the ed...

The shape of infinity

07/1/2011 at 3:11 pm | Martijn Lofvers | No Comments

While innovation and sustainability have of course both been around as long as time itself, they appear to be the hottest topics in the business world at the moment. In the aftermath of the recent and unparalleled financial crisis, countless...

The World of Service Logistics

07/1/2011 at 2:14 pm | Martijn Lofvers | No Comments

As a professor in maintenance and reliability at Eindhoven University, I often find myself reflecting on the developments in service logistics. Service logistics covers all the activities needed to keep technical systems up and running. It is about...

The impact of company culture on IBP part II: Change

03/28/2011 at 9:01 am | Martijn Lofvers | No Comments

Implementing Integrated Business Planning (IBP) processes may challenge many existing values and behaviours in a company. For IBP to be effective a set of values is required. Some important ones are: 1. Group thinking: take a holistic business vie...

Carbon Disclosure Project Supply Chain Report 2011

02/1/2011 at 10:20 am | Martijn Lofvers | No Comments

Over 50% of an average corporation’s carbon emissions are typically from the supply chain rather than within its own four walls. Managing supply chain emissions is therefore critical if we are going to address climate change effectively. The Car...

Supply Chain Resilience 2010

10/18/2010 at 4:08 pm | Martijn Lofvers | No Comments

Business Continuity Management is proving to be an effective technique to better understand supply chain dependencies and develop a robust strategy to deal with disruption. BCM provides a practical and proven methodology to ensure an organization’s...

To the buttons

10/13/2010 at 4:46 pm | Martijn Lofvers | No Comments

Companies in the supply chain are becoming more and more dependent on third parties. They outsource  more and more production to contract companies. At Apple, it has gone so far that the entire supply chain has been outsourced to Foxconn of Taiwan....