We are facing global challenges regarding climate change, putting ever-pressing need for a shift to more sustainable practices into the business activities. Organisations, i.e. in the context of being critical stakeholders in the integrated supply chain, identified their logistics strategy and management as a key area to contribute significantly to become more sustainable and have an impact on the triple bottom line. The shift from seeing the logistics strategy as transportation and warehouse management towards an integral part of the corporate strategy will help refining their service levels to the point that an organisation is functioning at its most cost-effective, and hopefully, most energy-efficient level. And doing so, it will be adding value to world-wide operating value chains.

The assessment should be considered as one continuous topic in three parts, starting with exploration of the academic and industry-based literature and ending in a showroom presentation about the future of supply chain logistics.

Assessment 1: Status Quo of Supply Chain Logistics

This individual assessment is about understanding supply chain logistics in academic and industry-based literature. The task is about identifying relevant articles, documents, and reports to demonstrate the current state-of-the-art integration of logistics strategy and management in supply chains. Here, the task is to write an investigative report for a supply manager of an internationally operating supply/value chain to support the decision-making process for continuous investment in sustainable processes (targeting sustainability / Triple Bottom Line) over the next 5-10 years. The following list provides some guidelines for the structure of the report.

1.   You have to decide on the scenario; that is the industry sector, company, product, or service of the either fictional or real supply chain. Your choice sets the context for your literature search and suggestions for potential sustainable practices. Write an introduction about your selected scenario including the motivation for the selection itself (max 300 words)

2.   The literature (academic and industry-based) review should address supply chain logistics (management) with a focus on your selection in Part 1 and the overall question given above. This implies in the case of choosing a food supply chain, articles regarding iron ore mining might either not fit or require an explanation of how the content of the article relates to the food supply chain. The literature review should not summarise papers but describe concepts/ideas; best only one per paragraph. The concept/idea is then “confirmed” by using references. The literature review should be around 500 words and it is expected to have >10 references (Reference style is stated in the Unit Outline). The outcome of this part should lead  to Item 3), informing your overview and choice.

3.   Based on the literature review, present an overview of potential risks as well as opportunities to implement sustainable practices in your chosen scenario; including a very brief discussion regarding the importance to mitigate the risk. You could also show a rough order in how important you consider the risk to be addressed in your context. Discuss two risks (2!) in more depths, e.g., suggesting a possible approach to mitigate the risk or use the opportunity, and implement a solution. This section is expected to be around 1000 words, with 400 for each selection.