The growth in intermodal rail freight in North America (U.S., Canada, and Mexico) has been phenomenal over recent years. The aim of this research study was to identify the contextual factors that will enable or inhibit future growth in this sector. The study adopted the PESTLE framework to classify enablers and inhibitors into contextual themes. An initial review of the literature identified a variety of enablers and inhibitors and highlighted the different stakeholders that existed within the North American intermodal railroad ecosystem. A qualitative research methodology was adopted to gather primary data from these stakeholders using semi-structured interviews to identify the enablers and inhibitors, but also strategies that would minimise the impacts of the inhibitors. A total of 32 interviews were undertaken by the researchers, the primary data collected was combined with the secondary data from the initial literature review and classified using the PESTLE framework. The data analysis identified key themes and variables, which would provide insight and direction for future stakeholder's decisions related to the sector. The study also identified areas for future research, in particular relationships between the stakeholders in the sector, but also the role of the sector in the wider context of supply chain management.

This study illustrates how the supply chain financing (SCF) ecosystem has responded to the COVID-19 crisis during the first year of its onset. The economic effects have manifested in disrupted supply chains, increased financial stress, and an overall negative impact on global trade. A multitude of organizations have struggled to manage their cash flow and working capital to survive the crisis. Overall, we explore how the SCF community as a business service ecosystem has intervened to provide organizations with opportunities to improve their liquidity. We use data obtained from a systematic, in-depth analysis of the practice-driven literature reporting on SCF activities as they unfolded in the early stages of the crisis. An inductive qualitative case study approach is applied to develop the grounded theoretical model that illustrates the SCF ecosystem's behaviors as it responded to the crisis. Furthermore, a post-hoc investigation, consisting of semi-structured interviews with 28 SCF experts, has been conducted to validate the theoretical model and to capture future developments. As we anticipate continuing global supply chain disruptions given the virus and its mutations, global warming, and trade wars among superpowers, our study provides insights for the behaviors of and relationships between the actors that comprise the SCF ecosystem in turbulent times.

The purpose of supply chain management has traditionally been to source, make, and deliver. Extant supply chain financing research has been primarily focused on the operational questions of how tools and instruments can be used more effectively. In this Notes and Debates paper, we argue that a new overarching purpose has emerged for the management of supply chains, which is to fund the organization. That happens through utilizing the cash flow between buyers and suppliers and other financial support. The emphasis is on optimizing that cash flow and securing liquidity as opposed to gaining short-term profitability. With such emphasis, firms will focus on utilizing their supply chains to not only manage raw materials, products, and components but also to fund activities relating to working capital (inventories, accounts receivable, and accounts payable). The critical part of this view is how the firm can simultaneously utilize and financially support the supply chain, including suppliers and customers, and vice versa. This shift from an operational to a strategic lens is profound because it provides a clear vision for the role of the supply chain management discipline as it interacts with the financial aspects of the organization.

The COVID-19 crisis has interrupted firms and their value networks. The lockdown measures taken by governments around the globe have triggered a massive supply and demand shock. The ensuing crisis has created economic chaos that resulted in massive business disruptions for companies, their customers, their suppliers and their affiliated service providers (banks and logistics providers). Firms are turning to supply chain financing solutions to stabilize liquidity and their net working capital to maintain solvency and ensure continuity of supply through their supply chains. This paper discloses several different types of supply chain financing solutions and how these can impact firms and their value creation partners struggling through the uncertain business environment caused by a global pandemic.

Rail freight between Asia and Europe has experienced an enormous growth over the past decade. In 2013, when Eurasian rail freight was still in its infancy, a research study conducted by Cranfield University identified various enablers and inhibitors to future growth. Back then, intercontinental rail freight occupied a niche position between the established transport modes of sea and airfreight. In recent years, this strategic niche has expanded as rail freight has attracted significant volumes and broadened the range of services and cargo shipped. The growth can be attributed to the considerable investments in infrastructure and government subsidies for shippers and forwarders as part of China's Belt and Road Initiative. This paper provides an evaluation of the contemporary Eurasian rail freight state and validates the previously identified enablers and inhibitors. In addition, new enablers and inhibitors are recognized and thematic areas are defined that are key to ensuring future success.

Contemporary modes in intercontinental transportation are sea and air freight. The geographical connection of Eurasia additionally enables rail freight via the Eurasian landbridge. This transport concept reduces lead time compared to sea freight at lower cost than air or sea-air freight and hence fits into a strategic niche between established modes. These characteristics facilitate developments in supply chain management like increasing transport distances and continuous cost reduction together with relatively new trends (smaller, but more frequent shipments, flexibility and sustainability) that are only partly satisfied by contemporary modes. At this moment, the Eurasian landbridge is at an immature state, used by few shippers. This paper intends to identify factors that enable, respectively, inhibit Eurasian rail freight and understand how inhibitors can be overcome. The research based on case studies reviewing literature and conducting interviews to investigate individual landbridge routes. Besides providing secondary data, literature identified stakeholders and thus served as input for 24 semi-structured interviews to gather primary data. Both data streams were then combined to reveal the current attractiveness of Eurasian rail freight. A future outlook in the closing section aims at stimulating further research and thinking in order to create a viable alternative for global supply chain management. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

PurposeSupply chains directly influence the differentiation and cost of a firm's products and services and its exposure to risk. The purpose of this paper is to use secondary financial data to explore the relationship between supply chain and firm performance by developing a unified proxy for supply chain performance.Design/methodology/approachEstablished econometric techniques were used to validate the proxy using a sample frame comprising the annual reports of 117 publicly traded UK manufacturing firms from the period 1995 to 2004.FindingsIncreases in change in the proxy lead to an increase in change in the rate of return on capital employed and a change in the rate of cash‐to‐cash cycle length, both of which are traditional measures of improved supply chain management. Moreover, as the rate of change of the proxy increases, so does enterprise value at a level that is statistically significant, indicating that improving supply chain management practices has a positive impact upon improved firm performance.Research limitations/implicationsAs annual financial results were used the analysis is at a high level so there is a lack of resolution in identifying discrete causes. The use of annual financial results also means that the research can only take yearly snapshots of firm performance.Practical implicationsThe paper indicates that the supply chain is an enabler, not an impediment, to superior organisational performance.Originality/valueThe originality and value of this paper is that it develops a proxy to explain the relationships between supply chain and an organisation's financial performance taking into account the three imperatives of profitability, liquidity, and productivity.

This chapter presents an overview of supply chain time – cost mapping (SCTCM), a framework which any organization can deploy which will enable them to gain greater visibility of both time and cost in their supply chain operation. The framework is underpinned by incorporating the tools and techniques of time-based process mapping and activity-based costing. It provides an organization with a holistic perspective of supply chain time and costs associated with a single product. The SCTCM can be used to identify and evaluate waste (non-value adding time) and provide additional insight into the costs associated with the supply chain activities consumed by a product. The framework provides a base case which can then be used to measure the impact of different improvement scenarios in terms of changes in total time and cost and highlights the impact of trade-offs between the individual activities that make up the supply chain process for a given product.

Although empirical studies show that supply chain integration is associated with high levels of business and operational performance, some authors argue that there is no need to pursue total end-to-end supply chain integration and different or relationship-by-relationship approaches are needed. This paper introduces the first step in the development of the business process model, which might facilitate the building of closer relationships among businesses and therefore endorse supply chain integration. The aim of this paper is to determine whether there is some generic set of supply chain processes, which support material and information flows in a dyadic relationship. Through the literature review, two supply chain process frameworks (SCPFs), namely supply chain operations reference and global supply chain forum, have been identified together with nine evaluation criteria. Evaluation results provide evidence on the generic set of supply chain processes together with the insights into specific advantages and common shortcomings of these two widely recognised SCPFs.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to highlight the limitations of current accounting practices in an inter-organisational context; introduce contemporary costing approaches used in inter-organisational costing (IOC) programmes; and identify the inhibitors of successful implementation of IOC programmes.Design/methodology/approach - The paper uses a structured review of empirical and theoretical literature.Findings - Traditional accounting practices do not adequately fulfil their role in the inter-organisational context. Contemporary accounting practices overcome only some limitations of traditional accounting practices. The paper uncovers part of the complexity surrounding the implementation of IOC programmes and suggests that we are dealing with a broad inter-disciplinary phenomenon.Research limitations/implications - Conclusions are drawn on a conceptual level and further empirical investigation is encouraged.Practical implications - The paper raises the awareness of the complexity surrounding the implementation of IOC programmes. The broad set of inhibiting factors could be effectively used by managers to assess the readiness of organisations involved in implementation of IOC programmes.Originality/value - This research is the first that systematically addresses the problem of inhibitors in the implementation of IOC programmes. The broad scope of the paper sets the foundations for more focused research into specific inhibiting factors.

In today's global competitive market, the total cost of sourcing, manufacturing and delivery of products is a major driver of competitive advantage. However, the true cost of operations in many organisations is often unclear or misleading because supply chain processes transcend both functional and company boundaries and the limitations associated with traditional cost reporting systems. Some cost-based approaches have been developed to address these issues but they tend to focus on the traditional accounting functional view of an Organisation and not extend to the business processes involved.Alternative approaches to improving supply chain performance, such as time-based methods, seek to improve efficiency by identifying and eliminating areas Of non-value added activity in supply chain processes. Although using time as a measure can be an effective approach to increasing value in the supply chain there is limited understanding of the relationship between time and cost across supply chains.The paper investigates, through the use of an industrial case Study, how analysis of both time and cost call be combined to provide a more accurate view of supply chain performance which can lead to better informed decision making. The subsequent analysis provides an insight into the relationship between time and cost in supply chain processes and demonstrates how product costs accumulate in the supply chain. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This paper reports on the research process to develop a comprehensive business process model of a dyadic relationship in the ARIEL project. The ARIEL project is an attempt to explore the relationship between business level buyer-supplier relationship management and operation level process management. The purpose of the model is to act as a decision support tool in evaluating different ways of configuring business processes between a buyer and supplier. The methodology used for model development consists of four stages: (1) evaluation of supply chain process frameworks ; (2) development of the generic business process model and ontology model ; (3) building specific case study models ; and (4) development of the ARIEL model. While the first two stages are grounded in the work found in published literature the last two stages use empirical findings from industrial case studies. This paper outlines the research design and results of the first two stages.

Structured abstract Purpose Measures and measurement ,systems must reflect the context to which they are applied (Neely, 1999), requiring that the contextual issues relating to retail shrinkage must be identified as a necessary precursor when measuring shrinkage. Without considering these issues any decision on which ,method ,of shrinkage measurement ,to employ ,will be

Senior Research Fellow Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield University. Bedfordshire. MK43 0AL United Kingdom. Telephone +44 1234 751122 Fax +44 1234 751712 Email: Paul.chapman@cranfield.ac.uk Simon Templar Teaching Fellow Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield University.

This paper presents findings from research amongst European grocery retailers into their methods for measuring shrinkage. The findings indicate that: there is no dominant method for valuing or stating shrinkage; shrinkage in the supply chain is frequently overlooked; data is essential in pinpointing where and when loss occurs and that many retailers collect data at the stock-keeping unit (SKU) level and do so every 6 months. These findings reveal that it is difficult to benchmark between retailers due to inconsistencies between measurement methods and that there are opportunities for many of the retailers surveyed to improve their shrinkage measurement by adopting known good practice.