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This article examines the business relationships in the cold chain used for exporting food to new markets in developing countries. The American Potato Trade Alliance, a cross‐network alliance that includes all levels of the value chain, is the subject of case study research involving participant observation and fieldwork in the Philippines and Thailand. Multinational restaurant companies manage technical challenges in target markets with tight specifications and exclusive supply chains, while smaller firms use extensive networks to supply imported frozen potatoes. Pricing strategies for cold chain services are closely related to quality and potentially affect the availability of outsourced cold chain services. Opportunistic behavior by buyers could reduce incentives for private investment in cold chain infrastructure, while long‐term commitment by chain partners would strengthen the potential for private markets to provide cold chain services in newly developing markets.

In recent years, with the Chinese government&rsquo ; s emphasis on the development of the cold chain logistics market for fresh agricultural products, the rapid development of agricultural cold chain logistics has been promoted in many aspects. However, in the circulation of fresh agricultural products, there is still a serious problem of &ldquo ; broken chain&rdquo ; leading to a high corrosion rate. Therefore, this research has analyzed the uncertain factors affecting the cold chain distribution system based on fault tree model, and then transform it into Bayesian network to evaluate the reliability of the cold chain distribution system for fresh agricultural product, and identify the key factors affecting the reliability of the cold chain distribution system through calculated probability importance of each node. Then we have constructed nonlinear equations with the limit of the cost, based on reliability allocation method to improve the system reliability. Numerical examples are given to validate the proposed models. The optimization result shows that higher reliability value assigned to the factors with high probability importance is more conducive to the improvement of system reliability.

Presented at Western Decision Sciences Institute (WDSI 2019) conference, 48th Annual Meeting - March 5-10, 2019 ; This paper addresses the horizontal coordination of production and distribution activities between plants located in different countries. Horizontal coordination gives the multinational firm the flexibility to shift production between plants within its global manufacturing network to take advantage of future changes in production, transportation costs, trade regulations, exchange rates, competitive moves, and government policies. In reaction to and in anticipation of such changes, the question is to determine how to adjust the production and distribution activities of the different plants in the network to maximize the global after-tax profit for the multinational firm. This paper proposes a mixed integer programming model for this problem.

Asks what really has changed for and what to expect from future supply chains. Most surveys rank activities related to sourcing, operations, customer services and marketing in terms of their importance to, or degree of hindrance for, successful supply chain management (SCM). In this explorative study, analyzes the change of SCM both in terms of operational practices and organizational capabilities in some industrial companies. A focused survey traces the development of supply chains and networks over two decades. Observes the expected growth in use of supporting IT systems, extent of information sharing and scope of coordination efforts. Characterizes the different stages supply chain evolution on the basis of supply chain integration and changing roles and responsibilities of the companies. It seems that due to the continuous structural change of the business environment the very concept of supply chain, let alone the best practice of managing one, should be subject to re‐examination in a wider context. In order to reach the current ideal of SCM practices, the strategic preconditions for innovative networking also need to be in place.

This text helps readers to build a solid understanding of the key concepts in the management and operation of supply chains involving chilling, refrigeration or freezing. Emphasis is placed on environmentalparticularly temperaturecontrol as important in avoiding irreversible damage to product quality and safety and the resulting loss of profit and consumer confidence. The authors explain the important issues arising within the supply chain of perishable goods from production to consumption: topics that include planning and design, instrumentation and methods of implementation, and process monitoring and control. Reminding the student that cold supply chains are essential for the supply of products more various than foods, product-specific studies and examples are included for handling bananas and vaccines. The importance of product traceability and automation are highlighted. Cold Chain Management is a self-contained guide for graduate and final-year undergraduate students specializing in the study of supply chains, and their instructors. Researchers interested in logistics will find this book instructive when they wish to consider the particular problems associated with cold chains and anyone looking to begin a business in which refrigeration or freezing will be necessary will be well-served by reading this text.

The cold chain is a much bandied about business proposition in India, attracting ever burgeoning attention over the past decade. It has typically been associated with securing national food supply, reducing wastage and with an energy intensive technology. Despite fetching increasing focus driven by the government, its ground manifestation stays limited. In reality, the cold chain is a misnomer derived from "cold SUPPLY CHAIN"; and like any supply chain, the production process, packaging criteria and delivery & distribution mechanism is particular to the cold chain. Hence the benefits perceived from the cold chain are not just limited to those derived through application of cooling, but additionally those due to inherent procedural changes it enforces across the entire supply chain process.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate when and how to best use social network analysis (SNA) in the supply chain management (SCM) discipline. In doing so, the study identifies SCM phenomena that have been examined from a social network perspective (SNA approach) in the SCM literature and highlights additional SCM phenomena that would be worth investigating using social network research. Then, the study critically investigates the application of SNA as a methodology (SNA method), with the goal of assessing and mitigating methodological risks in future studies.


Design/methodology/approach
This study carries out a systematic literature review of articles published in 11 top-tier SCM journals over a 20-year period.


Findings
First, while social network research has gained momentum especially since 2010, scholars are not yet entirely aware of the many possibilities the SNA approach offers to the SCM field. Second, expanded possibilities also hold for the development of SNA as a method.


Originality/value
The paper guides future SCM research by investigating when SNA is the right approach to use and how SNA as a method should be performed. Theoretically richer and practically more relevant research should result.

PurposeRethinking how to build resilience in supply chains is once again highlighted by COVID-19. Research on supply chain resilience has established flexibility as a firm-level antecedent that contributes to supply chain resilience. However, the authors know little about how supply chain flexibility is developed within a firm. Drawing on social capital theory, the authors claim that the way supply chain managers are embedded in their social networks plays a critical role in developing this antecedent. Specifically, the authors hypothesize that supply chain managers' structural and relational embeddedness in their reference network, comprised of individuals from whom they seek advice, is instrumental to developing supply chain flexibility, which subsequently enhances the firm's supply chain resilience.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data collected from 485 manufacturing firms in Australia and Hayes and Preacher's (2014) parallel multiple mediator model were employed to empirically test the hypotheses.FindingsThe findings of the study establish that supply chain managers' structural and relational embeddedness in their reference network indeed have implications for developing supply chain resilience. Furthermore, the mediator through which managers' social embeddedness influences supply chain resilience is identified in the current study.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the extant literature on supply chain resilience, investigating the role that supply chain managers' social capital play in developing the resilience of their firm.

Purpose– Cold chain has become an integral part of the supply chain domain. The purpose of this paper is to consider all the significant factors in a single study. This will result into a better model to study the effectiveness of a cold chain because there has been absence of such an integrated study.Design/methodology/approach– The basis of the factors is justified by performing extensive literature review. Inter relations are drawn based on critical analysis of each factor and its implications on cold chain. Bayesian Network is used to develop the model.Findings– The end result is an established model, depicting the interdependencies of the factors. The model ultimately provides effectiveness of a given cold chain when the corresponding values of factors are put in.Practical implications– The findings will be helpful for government and non-government bodies to analyse the effectiveness of a cold chain. This can be used to increase the performance of different stages in the cold chain. From a business perspective, an investor can analyse the cold chains of various geographies in order to make an investment decision.Originality/value– The value lies in developing and introducing new factors which were not considered in the related literature previously. To identify the inter relations among the factors in order to build a causal model is another contribution of the present paper. This would assist in decision-making process with respect to any given cold chain. It can be applied to any cold chain as proposed model is not specific to a particular country or material.