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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the application of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in the continuous process industry, taking an insight into the food processing industry; and to evaluate the impact of LSS on environmental sustainability. The authors present observations and experiences from the application of LSS at a Norwegian dairy producer, with the aim of bringing out pertinent factors and useful insights that help us to understand how LSS can contribute toward greater environmental sustainability in this industry type, something that is so far lacking in the extant literature.

The authors adopt a single, longitudinal field study approach as we observe an entire cycle of the VSM-DMAIC (value stream mapping-define, measure, analyze, improve and control) LSS process, which evolved over a six-month period at the dairy.

The authors highlight some of the important elements that should be considered when using LSS as a contributor toward greater environmental sustainability in fresh-food supply chains. The authors also present some of the specific outcomes and key success criteria that became apparent to the implementation team following the deployment of the VSM-DMAIC approach.

The authors demonstrate how LSS can be applied in the food processing industry as a contributor to greater environmental sustainability. The authors also make useful reflections regarding the success criteria that can be used by researchers and practitioners for the effective deployment of such an approach, particularly in the continuous process industry.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of sharing and utilizing remaining shelf life (RSL) information from grocery stores by the use of age-based replenishment policies for perishables.

The performance is evaluated through a discrete event simulation model, which mirrors a part of one of Norway’s largest grocery retailer and uses their POS data to reflect a realistic demand pattern of 232 stores for one year.

The findings indicate that a current age-based replenishment policy (EWA policy) provides a significant improvement of 17.7 percent increase in availability for perishables with a shelf life between 4 and 11 days, but suffers from high inventory levels and only reduces waste by 3.4 percent compared to a base stock policy. A proposed adjustment to the EWA policy, EWA_SS, provides a more balanced performance in the conducted study with a reduction of 10.7 percent waste and 10.3 percent increase in availability by keeping the same average inventory level.

Sharing and utilizing RSL information for replenishment of perishables with a predetermined shelf life between 6 and 11 days can be beneficial, and could enable the replenishment processes to be automated. However, for products with longer shelf life, the benefits slowly diminish.

The study proposes a new age-based replenishment policy which in the conducted study showed a more balanced performance improvement, in both waste and availability, compared with previous replenishment policies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore tactical planning in grocery retailing and propose how process and integration mechanisms from sales and operations planning (S&OP) can enhance retail tactical planning.

This work follows an explorative design with case studies from the grocery retailing industry in Finland, Norway, and the UK.

The tactical planning process focuses on demand management and securing product availability from suppliers in order to reach sales targets. Less attention is directed toward balancing supply and demand or toward providing a single plan to guide company operations. Planning appeared to be functionally oriented with limited coordination between functional plans, but it did include external integration that improved forecast accuracy.

The study involves grocery retailer cases with variable levels of S&OP maturity. The propositions need to be investigated further through action research or additional case studies to confirm their validity.

The study proposes a design of an S&OP process in retailing and propositions for improving tactical planning integration.

The study complements research on retail tactical planning by taking planning process and integration viewpoints. The research suggests that retailers would benefit from a formal and company-wide S&OP process to unify different market-oriented plans to a single set of numbers, thus better balancing supply and demand without sacrificing the emphasis on demand planning.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how companies design sales and operations planning (S & OP) contingent on the planning environment (PE).

On the basis of the literature, the paper creates an analytical framework identifying the main constructs related to the PE and S & OP design, which is the basis for gathering and analysing qualitative data from eight cases in the food industry. The findings highlight the relations between S & OP and the PE, and are used for generating three propositions.

Responding to the complex and uncertain PE, the companies set up S & OP on a stock-keeping unit (SKU) level, with the possibility of re-planning and a flexible planning horizon, thus differing from what has generally been suggested in the literature. In addition, the companies are aligning the inputs, activities, and outcomes of the S & OP process to the PE. Particularly important environmental contingencies are uncertainty connected to demand and supply, frequent product launches, and production network complexity. Product-related variables have a lower impact on the S & OP design.

The present study is limited to one industry only and a comparison between industries with larger data sets would be valuable in future studies. The study selected cases based on their S & OP maturity; further studies need to explore the effect of the alignment of S & OP and the PE on the planning performance.

In the literature, S & OP is presented as a generic process with a strict formal design that is equal for all companies. The study provides insights into how companies adjust S & OP according to the PE.

This article celebrates the 50th anniversary of IJPDLM, reflects on the contribution of IJPDLM to the field of logistics and supply chain management (LSCM) and discusses future directions for the journal.

Descriptive analysis of manuscripts received and accepted by IJPDLM during 2015–2019 is used to provide an overview of the journal. Content analysis of selected articles is used to highlight important contributions of the journal. Changes made since 2020 are highlighted to inform future directions of IJPDLM. Invited articles are discussed and used to clarify future directions.

IJPDLM has made tremendous progress in informing and shaping the field of LSCM. Key issues addressed include sustainability and reverse logistics, omni-channel, e-commerce, retail logistics, risk, resilience, volatility, and complexity and digital technology innovation. The journal has expanded the use of methods beyond the typical qualitative and quantitative methods to explore the use of design science, experiment, conjoint analysis, qualitative comparative analysis, narrative analysis. The invited articles provide (1) a historical reflection of the purpose of the journal when it was launched, (2) new guidance on how to develop theories using literature review and grounded theories and (3) understanding of startups and supply chain ecosystems.

Some exemplar articles are highlighted to explain how IJPDLM informs LSCM managers, companies and policy makers.

This article explains the recent development and sets future directions for the LSCM field.

This study explores how information and communication technologies (ICT) can contribute to empowerment in an Industry 4.0 setting.

The results are based on a case study of a Norwegian manufacturing organisation that has highly automated production and an integrated ICT platform. Data analysis was guided by the Smith and Bititci (2017) framework for performance measurement and management.

When powered by advanced ICT, the performance measurement system matures. The design and development of the ICT platform also reinforce the organisation's existing performance management practices. Empowerment is strengthened when automated collection, analysis and reporting of performance data free up middle managers' time so that they, together with operators, can drive continuous improvement.

The findings are limited to a single case study and require further testing for transferability to other organisations. Future research should explore whether performance management practices are also reinforced by ICT in more command- and control-oriented organisations.

The paper suggests an alternative strategy of Industry 4.0 transformation for organisations committed to empowerment. Such organisations should rely on in-house, iterative ICT development and build digital competence broadly.

This article contributes to the understanding of how performance measurement and management are interrelated and evolve in the context of Industry 4.0. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, highlighting the role of middle managers in empowering operators through continuous improvement is novel in the performance measurement and management literature.

Doctoral education is usually considered to be a one‐to‐one learning situation with the professor on one side of the table and the doctoral student on the other. With the joint‐Nordic PhD program in logistics, founded in 1997‐1998 by a network of senior scholars from business schools and universities throughout the Nordic countries, doctoral students are now part of a learning network comprising other doctoral students and senior researchers. One of the program’s purposes is to establish doctoral courses in logistics to improve and secure the quality of research. So far, two courses have been completed: “Logistics in a philosophy of science perspective” and “Methods in logistics research”. The student response to the initiative has been very positive. The Nordic Research Academy (NorFA) and the participating universities have supported the program financially.