Publications

23 Feb 2022
Podcast

Supply Chain Decarbonization: Walmart’s Project Gigaton

Kathleen McLaughlin, Chief Sustainability Office at Walmart, Inc. and President of the WalmartFoundation, discusses how Walmart plans to achieve its goal to avoid a gigaton–a billion metrictons–of greenhouse gas emissions in its global supply chain by 2030. She shares... View Details

17 May 2021
News

This Is the Year of the Broken Supply Chain

15 Oct 2019
News

Understanding Challenges Across the Supply Chain

Alvarez has visited farms, slaughterhouses, packing plants, and supermarkets to explore issues of concern to managers working around the world and across the supply chain. “We try to get into the weeds of what’s happening and speak to the... View Details

17 Jun 2022
News

Another Shortage? Here’s What Is Happening to Supply Chains

April 3, 2020
Article

How Hospitals Can Manage Supply Chain Shortages as Demand Surges

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer, Gary P. Pisano, Raffaella Sadun and Thomas C. Tsai

The best practices in supply chain and operations management can help health care providers cope with the surge in patients and the supply shortages. They will help them create a comprehensive strategy aimed at both the demand- and supply-side roots of the problem. The... View Details

Keywords: Hospitals; Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Supply Chain Management; Operations; Management; Strategy

Research Summary

Measuring and Managing Risk in the Supply Chain

Understanding risk factors associated with supply chain decisions and how to appropriately model and quantify those factors. View Details

19 Oct 2022
News

Oops, We Forgot to Fix the Supply Chain

May 2023 (Revised June 2023)
Case

Harvard University and Urban Mining Industries: Decarbonizing the Supply Chain

By: Shirley Lu and Robert S. Kaplan

The case describes Harvard University’s consideration to decarbonize its supply chain by replacing cement with a low-carbon substitute called Pozzotive®. Developed and produced by Urban Mining Industries, Pozzotive® is a ground-glass material made with post-consumer... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Emissions; Blockchain; Supply Chain; Green Technology; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability

Educators

24 Dec 2014
News

Building a sustainable value chain

Nancy Barry (MBA 1975) believes in doing well by doing good. She founded Enterprise Solutions to Poverty to help companies see the mutual benefits of partnering with lower income populations. (Published December 2014) View Details

2020
Working Paper

Reverse Information Sharing: Reducing Costs in Supply Chains with Yield Uncertainty

By: Pavithra Harsha, Ashish Jagmohan, Retsef Levi, Elisabeth Paulson and Georgia Perakis

Supply uncertainty in produce supply chains presents major challenges to retailers. Supply shortages create frequent disruptions in terms of promised delivery times, quantity and quality delivered. To alleviate these challenges, dual sourcing--a strategy in which... View Details

Keywords: Information Sharing; Yield Uncertainty; Ration Gaming; Blockchain; Supply Chain; Risk and Uncertainty

SSRN

2021
Case

Walmart's Blockchain Quest: Integrating New Technology into a Complex Supply Chain

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

Blockchain is a digital, distributed, immutable ledger designed to build trust among parties without requiring an independent, third-party arbitrator or intermediary. The technology has potential to improve a variety of industries, including the complex, fragmented,... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; Supply Chain Management; Technology Adoption

January 2021
Article

Chain Stability in Trading Networks

By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers, Alexandru Nichifor, Michael Ostrovsky and Alexander Westkamp

We show that in general trading networks with bilateral contracts, a suitably adapted chain stability concept (Ostrovsky, 2008) is equivalent to stability (Hatfield and Kominers, 2012; Hatfield et al., 2013) if all agents' preferences are fully substitutable and... View Details

Keywords: Matching; Trading Networks; Chain Stability; Stability; Competitive Equilibria; Full Substitutability; Laws Of Aggregate Supply And Demand; Contracts; Market Design; Balance and Stability

2024
Working Paper

Markups and Cost Pass-through Along the Supply Chain

By: Santiago E. Alvarez, Alberto Cavallo, Alexander MacKay and Paolo Mengano

We study markups and pricing strategies along the supply chain. Our unique dataset combines detailed price and cost information from a large global manufacturer with matched retail prices collected online for the period July 2018 through June 2023. We show that total... View Details

Keywords: Markups; Pricing; Price; Supply Chain; Inflation and Deflation; Cost

April 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Supplement

Supply Chain Partners: Virginia Mason and Owens & Minor (B)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem

The epilogue to Supply Chain Partners: Virginia Mason and Owens & Minor (A), the B case details the outcome of the issues discussed in Case A; namely that Virginia Mason and Owens & Minor did implement the TSCC contract. Virginia Mason also kept the suture contract... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Supply Chain Management; Partners and Partnerships; Measurement and Metrics; Contracts; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

23 Apr 2020
News

Managing Through Crisis: What Toilet Paper Can Teach Us About Supply Chains

April 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Supply Chain Partners: Virginia Mason and Owens & Minor (A)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Lisa Brem

Virginia Mason Medical Center (VM) hired Owens & Minor (O&M) as its alpha vendor for medical/surgical supplies in 2004. By 2005, O&M was performing Just-in-Time and Low Unit of Measure services for VM, but they believed the pricing model in the industry was outdated.... View Details

Keywords: Activity Based Costing and Management; Price; Distribution; Supply Chain Management; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

Educators