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This article studies the problem of optimally locating storage facilities and determining their service areas for the distribution of goods within multiple distance constraints. The problem is relevant for the service systems that maintain inventories of items required for servicing at demand locations within different service time windows (e.g., the after-sales service systems that maintain service parts for critical equipment). A location optimization model is presented that considers a continuous unidimensional coverage under two service distance constraints, demand composition, and inventory and transportation costs. The investigation primarily focuses on the tradeoff between inventory and transportation costs to provide guidelines for the appropriate distribution setups under a set of different conditions. The article adds to the under-researched area of continuous location optimization and offers some novel insights in this area. Some of the existing optimization methods in this area rely on Voronoi partitioning. However, the analysis highlights that Voronoi regions may not be optimum when inventory costs are considered. It also highlights that different cost and demand compositions can result in significantly different optimum location patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the relatively young age of the supply chain management (SCM) discipline, SCM academic programs must be able to validate their effectiveness to compete for university resources. The research herein supports this by extending a longstanding series that evaluates publication productivity across six major SCM journals. This edition ranks the top 25 most productive SCM schools between 2014 and 2016. With the series now celebrating 50 years, the results therefore allow evaluation of a half century of SCM research. The series also evaluates authorship concentration to assess the continued growth of the SCM discipline. Like previous editions, the results reveal that a core set of schools continue to lead SCM research with some holding strong performance throughout the entire 50 years. However, a moderately large portion of the top-25 schools continues to change as new SCM programs emerge globally. The author concentration analysis confi rms these results as the growth of new scholars and new SCM programs continue to consistently expand. As a point of concern, however, the global diffusion of SCM authorship and schools graduating new SCM scholars are slowing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms interact with other parties in their supply chain to access the resources necessary to operate effi ciently and effectively. While much of the extant research focuses on dyadic relationships between two fi rms, another unit of analysis that can be utilized to augment the current research in supply chain management is the portfolio (Tokman et al. 2007 ). Firms engage in a diverse set of relationships at any given point in time, and these sets of relationships can be conceptualized as portfolios, defi ned as the set of direct interfi rm relationships for the focal fi rm. Portfolios provide a useful unit of analysis for research because a fi rm must also have a vision for how to manage its portfolio in support of value creation and appropriation, in addition to understanding how individual relationships provide access to resources and help the organization adapt to the changing environment. In this research, we utilize a systematic literature review to explore supply chain portfolio research from a variety of academic fi elds. Our fi ndings include multiple themes with confl icting results in the extant literature. We then utilize the fi ndings to motivate directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

End-consumers have become signifi cantly prevalent in the contemporary supply chain management (SCM) dialogue. Due, in part, to the rapid development of mobile technologies and the growing emphasis on online retail order fulfi llment and omni-channel SCM, there has been a shift toward more research on consumer-oriented SCM practices in the academic literature. This fairly new, but growing, body of research that has contributed to our understanding of the link between SCM and consumers has proliferated, yet without an overarching theory-driven conceptualization to connect to. The purpose of this article is to address this gap in the literature by providing a comprehensive review of research that has focused directly on consumer issues in SCM, and in doing so, present a conceptual model to add structure and clarity to this body of work. Based on themes that emerged from the literature, we propose the concept of "consumer-based supply chain management performance" as a framework to represent this research domain. Moreover, in presenting the framework and associated categories, future research opportunities are suggested, with the aim of further contributing to the growth, development, and structure of this contemporary SCM dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article continues an established series of analyses across 48 years of institutional research productivity in supply chain management (SCM) journals, ranking the top 25 schools producing SCM research in 2011-13, in comparison to previous editions of the study. The current results illustrate that a core set of SCM academic institutions consistently retain strong research productivity, ranking in the top 10 across decades. However, there is significant variability in the remaining top 25 in comparison to previous editions, which is corroborated by an analysis of the concentration (i.e., diversity) of authors in the discipline that indicates that a greater number of authors and institutions continue to contribute SCM publications. However, this diversity is concentrated primarily among North American institutions as international institutions are not increasing publication productivity in the established journal set. Ultimately, the combined results provide a benchmark of the current status of the SCM discipline and present insights into its continued maturation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Great Recession of the late 2000s created a turbulent business environment that is forcing managers to reevaluate how to manage their resources effectively and efficiently. In the logistics and transportation domain the primary forces of change include, but are not limited to: rapidly changing customer requirements, increasing energy (fuel) prices, the rising cost to serve, mounting inventory costs, and growing total landed costs. These forces of change have shifted the strategic direction of the firm toward a mixed approach where firms attempt to be "all things to all people," thereby competing on both cost and service. In contrast, the study results indicate that during and after the recession the primary goal or objective of the firm was cost reduction. Customer service as a primary goal or objective has steadily declined, and has not yet returned to 2008 levels. This can be attributed to rising transportation, inventory, and distribution costs during a time of increasing customer service requirements. Two recommendations for managers are offered: to more fully understand the relationship between logistics costs and differentiated service; and to develop data and analytical capabilities that will enable them to deliver differentiated service of the right product for the right customer, in the right quantity and the right condition, at the right place, at the right time, at the right cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global competition has intensified geographic repositioning of supply chain activities with implications for the economic prosperity of specific regions and geographies affected by such shifts. Despite recent advancements made in the theory and practice of facility location decisions, a gap exists in understanding how these decisions are influenced by regional geographies and their respective supply chain capabilities. As economic development agencies recognize the value inherent in location-specific and geographically concentrated supply chain capabilities, this research explores how these affect regional prosperity and economic development. Through a combination of exploratory Delphi panels, web content analysis, and cluster mapping procedures, the research suggests a framework highlighting the potential role of regional supply chain capabilities and public sector strategies on economic development outcomes. Findings indicate that regional geographies are differentially and uniquely qualified to serve as supply chain hubs by capitalizing on these capabilities through actionable public- and private sector interventions. Regional differentiation lies in supply chain elements that are place-luck embedded and as such difficult to acquire, change, or modify. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative transportation management (CTM) is a relatively new collaboration model that addresses inefficiencies in the transportation process in supply chains. This study empirically examines the impacts of CTM on logistics capability and competitive advantage of carriers within a supply chain, and analyzes the relationships between logistics capability and competitive advantage. Based on factor analysis, key factors of CTM practice, key logistics capabilities, and key competitive advantage factors for carriers are identified. The relationships proposed in the framework are tested using structural equation modeling. Analytical results demonstrate that CTM practice enhances logistics capability and competitive advantage, with logistics capability reinforcing competitive advantage. In other words, CTM can have a direct and positive influence on competitive advantage, and an indirect influence through logistics capability. The results also indicate that carriers establish higher levels of integrated relationship with their customers in a CTM model can lead to improved customer-service capability and enhanced cost-leadership advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses archival panel data over two decades and social network analysis (SNA) to address the question of whether logistics and transportation have become more central to the US economy over time. Unlike traditional measures, SNA goes beyond measuring dyadic relationships and incorporates measures of power, like centrality, closeness, and betweenness that traditional measures fail to capture. Secondary data from the Benchmark Use Input-Output Tables compiled every five years by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis are examined in the SNA context. Results demonstrate the value of using SNA over conventional dyadic measures to analyze the extended network, especially with respect to the shift of power and centrality over time. The findings demonstrate that while the overall industrial landscape of the United States has become less centralized over time, transportation and warehousing have become increasingly central to the US economy. Thus, the article demonstrates that over time, logistics and warehousing have not only become more powerful, but have gone from being peripheral activities to being increasingly central and important in the larger economy. The article contrasts our findings from the SNA approach with those obtained from conventional (non-SNA-based approaches) and highlights the differences in the two approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International conducts an annual' survey of business school faculty and administrative salaries, the standard reporting does not specify salary figures for logistics (and related areas such as supply chain management) faculty. Since the growth in the number of logistics faculty positions has continued to exceed the output of doctoral programs in the field for more than a decade, it is logical to assume that logistics faculty salaries, at all levels, are increasing. However, without factual data, questions such as what salary should a new logistics PhD expect, and what should an administrator budget for a logistics faculty position, cannot be answered satisfactorily. Moreover, everyone expects and wants to be adequately compensated. However, for the specific discipline of logistics and supply chain management (SCM), the data on average compensation across different ranks, institutions, and other such factors is not available. In order to provide such factual data, the authors have developed a survey to collect annual data on logistics and supply chain faculty salaries. This year's survey was the fourth in the past five years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dedicated truck lanes are a concept with inherent characteristics that can be the solution to a significant portion of the freight roadway transportation issues. The separation of trucks and automobiles through revised design configurations and operational features could reduce congestion, enhance mobility, and improve safety for all users of the infrastructure. This article examines the major issues of truck freight mobility and the need to develop roadway infrastructure differently to serve the complex supply chains and our economy. A public-private partnership can be the financial engine to support this project with the necessary capital to fund the infrastructure. The benefits to the public are many and such a project can serve as the catalyst and cornerstone to a new way forward for freight mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We administered a survey of authors who conduct transportation research and have recently published in transportation-related research journals. The purpose of the survey was to assess the authors' perceptions of the quality of journals that publish transportation research. We used lists of journals that were included in previous surveys of logistics-focused researchers. We note that transportation-related journals cater to a wide audience of researcher disciplines and practitioners. Evaluations of logistics-related journals have been conducted in the past, but none have surveyed the full community of transportation researchers and journals. In this study 320 such researchers rated 21 journals. For this sample, Transportation Research B was found to be most highly regarded, followed closely by Transportation Science. Following these were Transportation Research A, Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, Naval Research Logistics, Transportation Research C, and Journal of Business Logistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]