From the Director's desk July 2022

Welcome to the second edition of Supply Chain Link for 2022.

Supply chains continue to be a topic du jour. The Ministry of Transport has recently put out the New Zealand freight and supply chain issues paper, which Gareth Vaughan from interest.co.nz interviewed me about. The interview and his article about it may be found on the Of Interest Podcast. I am also talking supply chains at the University’s Raising The Bar evening on the 2nd of August. I’m a bit nervous whether I’ll be able to hold the interest of a general audience drinking in a bar, but fingers crossed! Do feel free to come along and support supply chains – the event is free. Please also save the date of 18th August for our next After 5’s event and watch your inbox for the invitation.

Two pieces of personnel news. First, Rona Luo has joined the Centre in a postdoctoral position. She’ll be looking into possible survey work that might raise the Centre’s local impact. If you have thoughts on this, please do reach out. As always, you can find all our contact details on our website. Second, I have recently accepted the role of Deputy Dean Academic at Melbourne Business School to start 1st November. We are still figuring out what this will mean for CSCM but we will likely be recruiting a new professor.

In this edition, Jaeseok Lee, senior lecturer at the University of Auckland Business School, gives us insights into the critical trade-off between adopting environmental management systems and energy efficiency in firms: How the additional energy use required to treat air pollutants and wastewater for safer disposal can undermine global efforts to reverse climate change. On the same theme of energy, we also have Greta Yeoman, journalist for Energy News, reporting on how the ongoing difficulties in supply chains with all the rising equipment costs and shipment delays have hit New Zealand’s electricity sector, including generation, transmission, and distribution companies.

Next, we have Shirekha Layangani, PhD candidate in the Information Systems and Operations Management department, who introduces her research proposal on AI-based inventory and procurement models for hospitals. We also have reports from two very well-received events that the centre held in April and May. In the first event, Tim Laseter, professor of practice at the University of Virginia’s Darden Business School, shared his experience and research covering the history as well as the emerging trends in online grocery and the infamous last mile. In the second event, Thomas Choi, professor at Arizona State University, told us about supply chain financing, i.e., using the supply chain to fund the organisation and using the organisation to fund the supply chain, and the role of fintechs.

I wish you all a great semester ahead!