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This study aims to document students’ supply chain solutions developed through the internship hackathon program. The study profiled innovative solutions developed by university students in Kenya to solve health supply chain logistics challenges during and beyond COVID-19. This is done by exploring students’ experience in developing sustainable logistics and supply chain management capacity-building programs in a low-middle-income country (LMIC).

This study used a qualitative approach to explore the experiences and perceptions of students and mentors who participated in a hackathon program. The study followed a cross-sectional descriptive survey design, collecting data from the participants through online questionnaires. The data were analyzed and presented using thematic analysis and narrative techniques.

Findings provide preliminary evidence for narrowing the gap between theory and practice through a hackathon internship blended with a mentorship program. Assessment of this program provides evidence for developing solutions toward ensuring the availability of essential medicine in LMICs during a pandemic such as COVID-19 by students. The profiled solutions demonstrate a broader perspective of innovative solutions of university students, mentors and potential opportunities for a triple helix approach to innovation for health supply chain system strengthening.

This original study provides evidence for advancing contribution to developing innovative solutions through partnerships between investors, universities and industry practitioners interested in mentoring students in the health-care supply chain during COVID-19 in LMICs. Specifically, contingency factors that affect the implementation of innovative programs during and beyond global pandemics such as COVID-19 by students’ innovators are identified, and implications for policy action are discussed based on the praxis of sensemaking.

This study examines a novel approach that combines internship, mentorship and hackathon projects for logistics and supply chain students in LMICs. The approach aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice and to create innovative solutions for essential medicines during and after COVID-19. The study urges more resources for supporting such programs, as they benefit both academia and industry. The study also argues that hackathon internship programs can help the logistics and supply chain industry adapt to the post-pandemic era. The study offers insights for investors, universities and practitioners in the health-care industry.

This study shows how to develop innovative solutions for the health-care supply chain during COVID-19 in an LMIC through partnerships between investors, universities and industry practitioners who mentor students. The study identifies the contingency factors that influence the success of such programs during and beyond global pandemics such as COVID-19 and discusses the policy implications based on the sensemaking praxis of the student innovators.

The purpose of this paper is to review studies on mathematical optimization of the sustainable gasoline supply chain to help decision-makers understand the current situation, the exact dimensions of the problem and the models provided in the literature. So, a more realistic mathematical optimization model can be achieved by fully covering all dimensions of the supply chain of this product.

To evaluate and comprehend the mathematical optimization of the sustainable gasoline supply chain research area, a systematic literature review is undertaken that covers material collection, descriptive analysis, content analysis and material evaluation steps. Finally, based on this process, 69 related articles were carefully investigated.

The results of the systematic literature review show the main areas of the published papers on mathematical optimization of sustainable gasoline supply chain problems and the gaps for future research in this field presented based on them.

This approach is subject to limitations because the protocol of the systematic review of the research literature only included searching for the considered combination of keywords in the Scopus and ProQuest databases. Furthermore, the protocol used in this paper restricts documents to English.

The results have significant implications for both academicians and practitioners in this field. It can be useful for academics to comprehend the gaps and future trends in this field. Also, for practitioners, it can be useful to identify and understand the parts of the mathematical optimization model, which can help them model this problem effectively and efficiently.

No systematic literature review has been done in this field by considering gasoline to the best of the authors’ knowledge and delivers new facts for the future development of this field.

The increasing prevalence of a wide range of infectious diseases, as well as the underwhelming results of vaccination rates that may be traced back to problems with vaccine procurement and distribution, have brought to the fore the importance of vaccine supply chain (VSC) management in recent years. VSC is the cornerstone of effective vaccination; hence, it is crucial to enhance its performance, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where immunization rates are not satisfactory.

In this paper, the authors focus on VSC performance improvement of India by proposing supply contracts under demand uncertainty. The authors propose three contracts – wholesale price (WSP), cost sharing (CS) and incentive mechanism (IM) for the government-operated immunization program of India.

The authors' findings indicate that IM is capable of coordinating the supply chain, whereas the other two contracts are inefficient for the government. To validate the model, it is applied to a real-world scenario of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in India, and the findings show that an IM contract improves the overall efficiency of the system by 23.72%.

Previous studies focused mainly on the influenza VSC industry within developed nations. Nonetheless, there exists a dearth of literature pertaining to the examination of supply contracts and their feasibility for immunization programs that are administered by the government and aimed at optimizing societal benefits. The authors' findings can be beneficial to the immunization program of India to optimize their VSC cost.

The global food industry is faced with the dilemma of finding a balance between food wastage and food shortage. Approximately one-third of food produced globally goes to waste, while about 800 million people suffer from undernourishment. Given this context, the purpose of this study is to investigate the unresolved challenges related to enhancing transparency associated with products of high perishability and low shelf life.

The authors conducted 25 interviews with global agri-food supply chains (AFSCs) experts to ask what impedes the progress of the current technologies, such as blockchain, to enable transparency and traceability (T&T) in AFSCs.

The findings indicate barriers at the individual, firm and supply chain levels. Based on these barriers, the authors propose an interconnected framework to explain technologically-driven T&T and guide on barrier removal from AFSCs. The authors conclude that by applying technology (i.e. blockchain) the authors can resolve the tension of supporting T&T in AFSCs. This can enable the efficient and transparent tracking of goods, reduction of food waste and loss, as well as promotion of the use of recyclable packaging and further sustainable practices and materials, all of which are aligned with a range of UN Sustainable Development Goals (2, 8, 10 and 12). Moreover, the authors see that some factors are interrelated. Based on these factors, the authors build an interconnected framework to guide on barrier removal from AFSCs. Managers in AFSC would find the findings especially relevant.

Drawing on industrial network theory and signalling theory, the authors propose an interconnected framework for explaining barriers (challenges) and potential solutions (opportunities) to T&T in AFSCs. This framework is developed by examining the interconnections of barriers at micro, meso and macro levels and applying signalling theory to explain how solutions address these barriers. The specific contributions of this study are: the list of barriers that impede the implementation of technological solutions for T&T in AFSCs; and a three-stage framework that explains how to remove the barriers for T&T. The study is limited by the focus on blockchain, which calls for future research once the next decentralised technology becomes available.

The literature that is presently available on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) combining optimization and industry 4.0 techniques falls short in its depictions of the recent developments, budding pertinent areas and the importance of SSCM in the growth of industrial economies around the world. This article's main objective is to analyze current trends, highlight the latest initiatives and perform a meta-analysis of the literature that is currently accessible in the SSCM area with a special focus on optimization and industry 4.0 techniques. The paper also proposes a conceptual framework that will assist in illuminating how the ideas of optimization and industry 4.0 may contribute to realizing sustainability in supply chains.

The proposed study systematically reviews 85 research publications published between 2010 and 2022 in referenced peer-reviewed journals in diverse fields, including engineering, business and management, services and healthcare. Numerous categories are considered throughout the examination of the literature, including year-wise publications, prominent journals, type of research design, concerned industry and research technique used.

The study demonstrates a deeper comprehension of the literature in the field and its evolution throughout numerous industry sectors, which is helpful for both practitioners and academics. The results from the content analysis highlight various future research opportunities in the domain.

This is one of the first research articles that have attempted to establish, analyze and highlight the current trends and initiatives in the SSCM domain from an optimization and industry 4.0 techniques viewpoint. The cluster-based future research propositions also enhance the novelty of the study.

The purpose of this study is to define and investigate the governance requirements of supply chain finance (SCF).

A qualitative analysis of 849 news articles published in UK newspapers (2000–2022) using the Gioia method.

SCF governance relies on developing capacities for reflexive scrutiny at two stages: (1) prior to entering into an SCF relationship and (2) during its operation. Based on the notion of SCF as a complex adaptive system, we theorise SCF governance requirements as a dual-layered semipermeable boundary. The semipermeability of the two layers allows for a dynamic exchange between the SCF system and its environment. The first layer is the capacity to selectively enable or control the entry and access of certain actors and practices into the SCF system. The second layer is a capacity for ongoing scrutiny of the SCF operation and its development. Further, we identify five aspects of governance to be enabled, i.e. enhancing adaptability, building confidence, improving efficiency, advancing technology and promoting transparency; and four aspects to be controlled, i.e. preventing abuse of power, curbing fraud risk, constraining operational risk and restricting risky extensions to SCF practices.

Our dynamic framework can guide supply chain (SC) members in making decisions about whether to participate, or continue to operate, in an SCF relationship. Moreover, the findings have implications for policymakers and authorities who oversee entry/access and the involvement of SCF providers, particularly, fintech firms.

The study contributes to both the SC and governance literature by providing a systematic analysis of what SCF governance has to accomplish. Our novel contribution lies in its analysis of SCF governance based on a complex adaptive system approach, which expands the existing literature where SCF is described in rather static terms. More specifically, it suggests a need for a dynamic duality of SCF governance through the semipermeable boundary that selectively enables and controls certain SCF actors and practices.

Background: The study focuses on the challenges encountered during the distribution of food and face-mask items during the first COVID-19 lock-down by various relief supply chain actors.

Methods: Data were collected from forty (40) relief actors through online (via Zoom and telephones) and face-to-face interviews, between January 2021 to March 2021. Data was coded based on per-determined themes after which it was further processed using Atlas ti. v7.57 to generate patterns.

Results: The study established challenges related to needs identification, procurement, warehousing, transportation, handling, beneficiary verification, and last-mile distribution. Additionally, the media and politics coupled with the emergence of new actors and governance issues were part of the challenges identified.

Conclusions: The identified challenges were internal and external to the relief supply chain; hence actors could have control over some while others were beyond their control. The findings could inform practitioners and policymakers on what challenges are likely to affect their operations, especially during a pandemic, and design appropriate coping mechanisms.

Supplier evaluation and selection is an essential (multi-criteria decision-making) MCDM process that considers qualitative and quantitative factors. This research work attempts to use a MCDM technique based on merging fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (F-TOPSIS) and Quality Function Deployment (QFD) ideas. The study attempts to find the supplier's attributes (HOWs) to accomplish its goals after determining the product's characteristics to suit the company's needs (WHATs).

The proposed research methodology comprises the following four steps: Step 1: Determine the product purchase requirements (“WHATs”) and those pertinent to supplier evaluation (“HOWs”). In Step 2, the relative importance of the “WHAT-HOW” correlation scores is determined and also the resulting weights of “HOWs”. In Step 3, linguistic evaluations of possible suppliers in comparison to subjective criteria are given to the decision-makers. Step 4 combines the QFD and F-TOPSIS techniques to select suppliers.

A fuzzy MCDM method based on fusing and integrating fuzzy information and QFD is presented to solve the drawbacks of conventional decision-making strategies used in supplier selection. Using the F-TOPSIS method, fuzzy positive ideal solution (FPIS) and fuzzy negative ideal solution (FNIS), the relative closeness coefficient values for all alternatives are computed. The suppliers are ranked by relating the closeness of coefficient values. This method permits the combination of ambiguous and subjective data expressed as fuzzy-defined integers or linguistic variables.

QFD and TOPSIS, two widely used approaches, are combined in this article to rank and evaluate suppliers based on the traits that the suppliers choose to prioritize. This study demonstrates that the method employed could address multiple-criteria decision-making scenarios in a computationally efficient manner. The effectiveness and applicability of the method are illustrated using an example.

Implementing sustainable practices in multi-tier supply chains (MTSCs) is a difficult task. This study aims to investigate why such endeavours fail and how MTSC partners can address them.

A single-case study of a global food retail company was used in this study. Semi-structured interviews with the case firm and its first- and second-tier suppliers were used to collect data, which were then qualitatively analysed using thematic analysis.

Major barriers impeding the implementation of sustainability in multi-tier food supply chains were revealed such as the cost of sustainability, knowledge gap, lack of infrastructure and supply chain complexity. Furthermore, the findings reveal five possible solutions such as multi-tier collaboration and partnership, diffusion of innovation along the chain, supply chain mapping, sustainability performance measurement and capacity building, all of which can aid in the improvement of sustainability practices.

Future research should investigate how specific barriers and drivers affect specific aspects of sustainability, pointing practitioners to specific links between the variables that can aid in tailoring sustainability oriented investment.

This research supports managerial comprehension of MTSC sustainability, pointing out ways to improve sustainability performance despite the complex multi-tier system of food supply chains.

The research on MTSC sustainability is still growing, and this research contributes to the debate about how MTSCs can become more sustainable from the perspective of the triple bottom line, particularly food supply chains which face significant sustainability challenges.