Supply Chain Risk

Apr 10, 2015

Post Award Contract Management with $40 Oil: Insights from Big Oil

I had the opportunity to host a good colleague of mine in my supply chain relationships class this week. We worked together years ago to help define the a baseline framework…

Mar 18, 2015

Is Procurement Being Too Aggressive in Negotiations?

A recent post by my colleage Kate Vitasek (author of the “Vest Outsourcing” model) in Forbes magazine argues that procurement is taking too aggressive a stance in negotiations with major logistics…

Feb 25, 2015

Biogen Idec designs the innovation supply chain

Joydeep Ganguly from Biogen Idec spoke in my Supply Chain Relationships class last week, and shared his insights on how Biogen’s supply chain evolved. Since graduating from the NC State…

Jan 13, 2015

What's New in 2015 for the supply chain world? See 2014's predictions..

Last year around this time I made a lot of predictions about what 2014 would hold in store…Let’s revisit some of these, and see what has happened (or what hasn’t!)…

Nov 20, 2014

Apple's Sapphire Supplier: A Textbook Example of Supplier Relationships Gone Bad

Today’s breaking Wall Street Journal article provides a great case study on the impacts of not properly managing contractual supplier relationships. First consider the type of supply arrangement this represented.…

Nov 10, 2014

How Does Procurement Create Value? Insights from CPO Speakers at Zycus Horizons Conference

I was attending the Zycus Horizons 2014 conference at Amelia Island today, listening to speakers. In addition to the procurement executives, I also got to meet Captain Dick Phillips, the…

Sep 6, 2014

Supplier Financial Health: Don't Wait for the Worst, Reach out and Talk!

Supply management research has established the axiom that firms are no longer operating independently, but indeed are part of an extended global network that is subject to high degrees of…

Jun 22, 2014

Thoughts from EurOMA Palermo: Operations Management and the Innovation Economy

Just finished speaking at the EurOMA conference in Palermo, and was excited by the discussions and feedback over the course of today. I arrived in Palermo yesterday, and had an…

May 5, 2014

Winning Student Posters Focus on Visibility, Total Cost of Ownership, and Procurement Processes

We had another great set of student projects during our Spring SCRC student poster session. Students presented a total of 26 projects, including both practicum projects from our undergraduates, our…

Apr 18, 2014

Real Estate: A Massive Working Capital Opportunity in Organizational Supply Chains

I recently had the opportunity to interview a group of individuals who work for a large life sciences company in their facilities management group. Like many such groups, Facilities are…