The World Trade Centre terror attack in 2001 changed the world and with it the conditions for logistics worldwide. The aftermath of the attack brought needed attention to the vulnerability of modern supply chains. This thesis addresses the antagonistic threats that exploit the vulnerability in a supply chain. Antagonistic threats are a limited array of risks and uncertainties and can be addressed with risk management tools and strategies. There are three key demarcations between antagonistic threats and other risks and uncertainties: deliberate (caused), illegal (defined by law), and hostile (negative impact, in this thesis, for transport network activities). This thesis makes a theoretical contribution to the usage of theories from criminology in supply chain risk management to handle antagonistic threats against the transport network. The recognition that antagonistic threats toward the transport network are a problem leads to verification of the research questions from the background and the theoretical framework. This is done to place or relate the research questions closer to the context. Furthermore, it leads to the conclusion that the answers may or may not contain competing and/or incompatible parts which differ depending on the perspective or viewpoint at the moment. One of the most important things to understand is that antagonistic threats toward freight always have been a feature in both business and politics. The different functions and goals for all stakeholders mean that all stakeholders and actors may use similar methods to manage antagonistic threats but the effects and consequences will change according to the circumstances. The system approach in this thesis is a soft-system thinking where reality is described in subjective terms and the whole system has the distinctive trait of vague or undefined boundaries between system components and the surrounding environment. Therefore, this thesis uses a complex system approach in which paradoxes and bounded rationality describes the system’s behaviour. This thesis defines the legal descriptions and criminal threats against and within supply chain management activities that entail both the systems context and boundaries. Managing of the antagonistic threats through the risk management perspective is separated into two sides, pre-event and post-event measures, which means the system needs to be robust and resilient, using logistics terms. It should be robust to automatically handle small risks (normally with high likelihood and low impact). The system also needs resilience in order to adapt, improvise, and overcome any disturbance greater than the system’s robustness can handle. Both robustness and its resilience can constitute of the full range of prevention, mitigation, and transferring tools and methods. Regardless of which perspective or viewpoint is chosen for analysing the problem, the same basic set of tools and methods are valid, but in practical use they need to be adapted to the actors’ needs and wants for managing their exposure to antagonistic threats.

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Managing the risk for antagonistic threats against the transport network

Due to the complex market and business environment, undesirable disruptions in logistics can affect enterprises and weaken its business strength. Risk Management has become the key in avoiding business losses. Logistics interruption can come from an unforeseen exogenous event such as an earthquake or from an endogenous event, like the Toyota Quality recalls in 2010 that interrupted enterprise logistic operations and degraded its performance (Trkman & McCormack, 2009). In this chapter, the risk management in logistics is studied from the process flow perspective. The topics discussed consist of logistics processes, risk management strategy, risk management process in logistic, and enterprise performance evaluation. Several risk management theories and framework from the literature are presented in the chapter. The aim is to provide valuable insights for enterprises through understanding the essential risk management concepts in logistics.

Risk Management in Logistics

In recent decades, millions of articles, books and journals have been written and thousands
seminars and conferences have been held to present increasing importance of supply chain
management both ...

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Perspectives of Complexity and Intelligence on Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Simulation tools for understanding logistics and create explanations for logistics operations are often developed under a state of stability, equilibrium and linearity whereas logistics are considered non-linear and complex. Agent based modelling provides the opportunity to build rigorous computer simulations of non-equilibrium systems and unlike other simulation methods, no agent has full knowledge about the system it operates in and the agents act on heuristics rather than on rationality, much like customers and firms in the real world. In the last twenty years the development in knitting technology has made it possible to produce entire garments in one piece with no need for time-consuming cutting and sewing processes afterwards. This gives new opportunities to produce knitted garments closer to the customer and hence being able to respond faster to shifts in demand for knitwear. Agent Based Modelling will provide an excellent opportunity to simulate a demand chain of the kind where the customer designs the garment and the garment is produced instantly. The aim is to create and present an agent-based model for the logistics operations in the Knit On Demand research project. The simulation will not only help to gain insight about the dynamics and emergent behaviours in a textile demand chain but also in demand chain management as a whole, as well as providing a base to test theoretical frameworks.

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Agent-based modelling in fashion demand chains.

The logistic process of a manufacturing company can be regarded as a complex system since it involves many and different actors interconnected by a high number of non linear relationships. More precisely, a logistic process constitutes a Complex Adaptive System. Complexity is a particularly important feature of logistic systems in companies pursuing mass customization strategies. As a matter of fact, mass customization triggers considerable complexity owing to different and constantly varying products, markets, processes, customers and customers’ requirements. Traditional logistic management approaches are based on Newtonian and mechanistic principles, such as perfect rationality, determinism and linear causality. However, global competition and changing demands make markets more and more turbulent and nowadays logistic systems are characterized by uncertainty, non linearity and heterogeneity. Therefore, there is a need for managerial models able to capture and understand these drivers of complexity in logistic processes. The paper suggests the integration between performance measurement and Systems Dynamics to control complexity of logistic systems under mass customization conditions. A case study from the automotive industry is detailed. The authors are currently refining the model presented in this paper and trying to extend the approach to study the complexity of a supply chain as a system.

A tool for managing Complexity in Logistic Systems under Mass Customization

The aim of this paper is to discuss the implications of a complex adaptive systems approach to the management of logistics operations. The research is a result of the need for managers of logistics operation to be able to adapt to the ever-changing demands of their environment and customer demands. The identified emphasis of mechanistic assumptions in traditional modeling of logistics is discussed and it is suggested that a change towards adaptive models and tools is needed. This means that the models have to be able to consider more complex behavior such as self-organization and emergent phenomena. A complex adaptive system (CAS) approach is applied by the use of agent-based modeling (ABM). Two cases are provided in which the CAS approach has been applied through ABM simulations. It is concluded the CAS approach implemented by the use of ABM can provide valuable insights for both researchers and practitioners within the field of logistics management.

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Jonas Waidringer

Papers

Toward Adaptive Logistics Management

Modelling a Port Terminal from a Network Perspective