Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore cargo theft risk and security for different product types at different locations along a transport chain.

This study is based on a system-theoretical approach. The research method is deductive, as the analysis is based on secondary data and results from a questionnaire. The results are analysed based on supply chain risk management (SCRM) theories.

Due to substantial interaction effects, the type of product and transport chain location must be considered to determine the correct level of security. Specifically, the product type is more significant, since the general cargo theft risk is higher. Furthermore, the transport industry has three perspectives on security responses to cargo theft, namely, demanded, needed and actual security, which differ depending on the product type and transport chain location.

This database is structured according to the global Transported Asset Protection Association organisational structure, which implies that there are three main databases: Europe, Middle East and Africa, Americas, and Asia-Pacific.

This study has both research and practical implications, as it examines security within freight transport from three perspectives, linked to general cargo theft risk and goods owners’ requirements.

This study addresses the contemporary SCRM problem of cargo theft using actual crime statistics and the industry understanding of required generic security levels.

Amidst offshoring and reshoring trends, the purpose of this paper is to explore why business practitioners, especially from the labour-intensive clothing industry, choose to manufacture some products in proximity to the high-cost European market. Moreover, the rise of sustainability concerns led us to further explore whether these reasons relate to triple bottom line (TBL): business, environment and society.

The content analysis was adopted for within-case and cross-case analysis of data from semi-structured interviews of managers from 12 clothing companies.

Within-case analysis showed enablers and barriers (factors) of proximity manufacturing within each company’s characteristics under TBL. Cross-case analysis showed the most-mentioned enablers (high-quality suppliers, short lead-time and fast replenishment) and barriers (expensive production cost and lack of industrial set-up and seamstresses). The findings revealed both common and different factors from existing studies.

Besides being motives for companies to bring manufacturing back to Europe, the results can be used by researchers and companies to develop criteria and performance measures of manufacturing locations for enhancing the TBL sustainability. Future research may explore different locations and industries for possibilities of proximity–manufacturing generalisation.

Findings show that governments could focus on eliminating barriers of proximity manufacturing and creating favourable institutional infrastructure for the European clothing industry and sustainability.

This paper highlights updated proximity–manufacturing factors from practices in relation to TBL sustainability, including support for proximity manufacturing as a practice for TBL enhancement.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal benefits and factors (elements) of proximity manufacturing that enhance triple bottom line (TBL) sustainability in the clothing industry and discusses previous proximity manufacturing studies.

A systematic review is used in searching and extracting data (primary studies artifacts and proximity manufacturing elements) from peer-reviewed articles. Extracted elements are gathered and analyzed in constructed tables under TBL. Four subgroups are inducted under the business bottom line.

This paper shows the potential of proximity manufacturing to enhance TBL sustainability, the scope of proximity manufacturing, and the trend and absence of existing studies. The most frequently mentioned elements are time-to-market, job creation, product quality, quick response, and trade policies. Governments and clusters are also important players.

Future research can further explore elements potentially improving TBL sustainability to fill gaps in existing studies, including how proximity manufacturing can drive environmental and social practices, and how governments can encourage proximity manufacturing in various markets.

Besides perceiving the benefits of proximity manufacturing, businesses may use the derived elements to make manufacturing decisions.

Public policies giving privileges to the locally produced garment industry have great potential to drive the economy and employment as well as sustain local clothing knowledge and the environment.

Proximity manufacturing strategies toward sustainability are under-researched academically and under-practiced industrially; this paper provides insight into sustainability benefits of proximity manufacturing.

The process of redesigning is one of the essential steps in upcycling, which comprises ideation, reconstruction and fitting. This paper aims to study the best practice of upcycling in the clothing industry. This study is an attempt to standardise upcycling/redesign process.

An exploratory approach was adopted to perform the research. This study draws on the multiple organisations involved in the upcycling of clothes. The organisations chosen for this study are located in Sweden and Romania using the snowball technique. Semi-structured interviews, direct and participatory observation approaches were used to collect information. The collected data are systematically analysed using NVivo 10 software.

This paper provides empirical insights into the diverse practices of upcycling. Process, product and demand-based were three fundamental approaches to performing the redesigning process. The fabric quality and durability, variations in size, colour and pattern, skills and efforts required in the extraction of parts and environmental consciousness and awareness were the main factors influencing upcycling process.

The use of the European case may miss best practices from the other region. This study may help scholars to understand the method of upcycling. A practitioner of upcycling can use the findings to improve and standardise the existing process. This research is beneficial for society, as this leads to the reduction of textile wastage.

This paper conceptualises some of the best practices of clothes redesign. This provides a good insight for the organisation for the improvement in the redesign business.

This paper aims to propose a framework for evaluating the performance of reverse value chain activities in the clothing industry operating at base of the pyramid. Specifically, the research explores firm and supply chain factors influencing clothing reverse value chain activities with a focus on developing economies.

The study adopted an explorative technique using direct observations and semi-structured interviews to collect information from eight companies and two traders. Internal resources and value chain capabilities were examined using theoretical underpinnings of resource-based view, transaction cost economics and base of the pyramid.

The paper identified multiple benefits of offshoring reverse value chain activities to the developing countries (at the base of the pyramid). Low operation cost, skilled manpower, business knowledge and location are found to be internal success factors. While favourable government legislation and domestic recycling markets are important external factors contributing to the success. Developing economies such as India contribute to firm performance by integrating, transforming, acquiring and co-creating the resources at base of the pyramid. Further, it was found that to achieve higher assets specificity, a few companies have opened their own shops in African countries, while others have opened sourcing branches in Canada or the USA to ensure good quality of raw materials. Collaboration and coordination among different value chain partners minimise cost and increases profitability. Innovation in the process such as clothes mutilation for recycling has created new business opportunities.

Information was collected from only eight organisations and two traders from India. Future scholars may extend the research to generalise the findings by documenting similar phenomena.

The proposed framework can serve a basis for the practitioners to evaluate firm performance, and the insights can be used to achieve sustainability by engaging producers, employees, consumers and community using base of the pyramid approach.

The study provides unique insights into the prevalent export and re-exports phenomena of used clothing. The resource-based view, transaction cost economics and base of the pyramid strategy underpinned together to develop a framework for understanding reverse value chain activities of clothing.

This study proposes a garment modularization model based on an interactive genetic algorithm. The suggested model consists of extraction and identification of parts and the determination and implementation of connections. Rules and corresponding mathematical equations have been formulated for the part's extractions from the discarded products and connections for the redesigned products.

Sustainability entices scholars and practitioners while referring to reducing waste to control environmental degradation. One of the ways to safeguard natural resources is to increase the reuse of old or discarded products. The current study focuses on the redesign process to improve the reuse of products.

The intelligent system proposed based on the modularization techniques is expected to simplify and quantify the redesign process. The model can further help in the minimization of wastage and environmental degradation.

Presently, manual decisions are taken by the designers based on their memory, experience and intuition to extract and join the parts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the patterns of reported cargo thefts at non-secure parking facilities in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) with respect to stolen value, frequency, incident category, and modi operandi.

This study is based on a system-theoretical approach that emphasizes on a holistic rather than an atomistic view. The research method used in this paper is deductive; the analysis is based on data obtained from the incident information service (IIS), a database of transport-related crimes from the Transported Asset Protection Association (TAPA) in the EMEA region. The results are analysed and discussed within a frame of reference based on supply chain risk management (SCRM) and criminology theories.

We found that 97 per cent of all attacks during a stop occur at non-secure parking locations. Cargo thefts at these locations are more of a volume crime than high-value thefts. Seasonal variations were seen in these thefts, and the most common type was an intrusion on weekdays during winter.

This study is limited by the content of and the classifications within the TAPA EMEA IIS database.

This paper is directly relevant to the current EU discussions regarding the creation of a large number of secure parking facilities in the region.

This is one of the first papers in the field of SCRM that utilizes actual crime statistics reported by the industry to analyse the occurrence of cargo theft by focusing on the non-secure parking aspect in the transport chain.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the seasonal patterns of reported cargo theft value and frequency in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) countries with respect to different transport chain locations.

This study is based on a system-theoretical approach, which emphasizes a holistic rather than an atomistic view. The research method used in this paper is deductive; the analysis is based on the data taken from Incident Information Service (IIS), a transport-related crime database of Transported Asset Protection Association (TAPA) EMEA; and the result is analyzed and discussed within a frame of reference based on supply chain risk management and criminology theories.

There are seasonal variations in cargo thefts at different transport chain locations during particular months of the year as well as days of the week; however, each transport chain location has a different pattern. Indeed, hot spots, modus operandi, theft-endangered objects, and handling methods change frequently during the period under study. However, the basic theoretical frame of reference continues to be the same.

This study is based on theoretical deduction using official statistics regarding antagonistic threats. Its geographical limitation to the EMEA is owing to the limitations of the utilized database, although the frame of reference can be applied to analyze antagonistic threats against transport chains globally.

This study is limited by the content and classification within the TAPA EMEA IIS database; nevertheless, this database is the best available one, with reports originating mainly from the industry itself, as different TAPA members anonymously report their losses.

This paper is one of the first on supply chain risk management that uses actual crime statistics reported by the industry itself to analyze the occurrence of cargo theft by focusing on the value of the vehicle/goods stolen from transport chain locations.

The security issue in supply chains is among the most pressing concerns that firms are currently facing. As a preliminary attempt to address this lack of empirical research, the primary purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between security practices and the security operational performance with respect to security culture as a moderator.

With the resource-based view of the firm as the theoretical underpinning, the study utilizes survey data to test the propositions derived from the security literature and partial least squares for the analysis.

The research reveals four crucial practices of supply chain security that collectively affect a firm’s security operational performance among Malaysian service providers. It is also interesting to observe that security culture positively moderates the relationship between facility management and the security operational performance of the firm.

Firms in emerging countries need to realize that supply chain security practices can result in significant benefits to their firms that can give them additional incentives to adopt these initiatives. This study may also help policymakers in emerging countries, in general, in setting appropriate policies and strategies, and Malaysia, in particular, for ensuring that it is a secure location for exporting cargo and giving assurance to the local and international investors to continue their investment.

This study will assist supply chain managers and logisticians to re-examine their existing supply chain security model by considering the selected supply chain security practices, which have a significant impact on supply chain security operational performance. Individual firms need to strategize their business model with the inclusion of security aspects, which will surely create a competitive advantage over other players in the logistics industry. Firms can develop the best appropriate supply chain security model that will benefit the firm, customers, and business partners, such as suppliers and local authorities.

The study highlights is the important role of the supply chain security practices to deliver high quality of service in terms of supply chain security operational performance in emerging countries. In addition, it offers an empirical analysis of the moderating role of security culture on the relationship between supply chain security practices and security operational performance.