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CRANFIELD CENTRE FOR LOGISTICS AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Current Research Projects

Project Title: Step Change in Agri-Food Logistics Ecosystems (Project SCALE)
Contact Person: Denyse Julien
Industrial Partners: EFFP, DHL Supply Chain, Wageningen University and Université d'Artois
Documentation: Project SCALE

Short Description: SCALE is an exciting three year project working across North-West Europe to increase economic competitiveness and improve environmental and social sustainability of food and drink supply chain logistics. Project SCALE is funded by INTERREG IVB North-West Europe which is a financial instrument of the European Union's Cohesion Policy. It funds projects which support transnational co-operation. The five partners of Project SCALE will be working with agri-food businesses and stakeholders to develop new solutions that will transform food logistics operations

Project Title: Aerospace Aftermarket Supply Chains
Contact Person: Lynne Wall
Industrial Partners: Rolls-Royce

Short Description: The Supply Chain Research Centre was recently awarded a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with a value of £280,000 over two years. KTP’s encourage the application of our wealth of knowledge and expertise to business problems. This partnership is with Rolls-Royce Civil Aerospace, and aims to restructure aftermarket supply chains and to model costs. Our project aims to improve service.

Project Title: AIMSS - Aligning & Integrating Market and Supply Strategies
Contact Person: Dr Janet Godsell
Industrial Partners: Consultancy Partner: S A Partners Collaborators: 3 operating companies that are part of larger global organisations
Documentation: AIMSS
Management Guide: Developing Supply Chain Strategy - A Management Guide

Short Description: This 3 year study will draw on the combined expertise of the SIMS and the SOM in the field of process alignment from both Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) and supply chain management (SCM) perspectives. The programme will embark on a journey with 3 supply chains with the objective of aligning demand and supply strategies to deliver improved customer responsiveness.

Project Title: ARIEL - Accelerating Relationships through Information Exchange in Logistic
Contact Person: Marko Bastl
Industrial Partners: Coors, Ford Motor Company
Documentation: ARIEL

Short Description: The ARIEL project addresses the topical and often discussed challenges in the supply chain community: costing and process information transparency in supply chain relationships. Our project aims to create an innovative business process modelling method that will evaluate different configuration of customer-supplier relationships. This will help managers to make better informed decisions, resulting in positive impact on drivers of business performance.

Project Title: Global Sourcing
Contact Person: Dr Carlos Mena
Documentation: Global Sourcing

Short Description: The project aims to address the issue of offshore outsourcing from a total cost perspective, looking at the implications for individual firms as well as for the UK as a whole. The main outcome of the project is the model, which will help companies make better outsourcing decisions, by providing them with a complete picture of all the costs and risks involved.
This research will also provide insights for public policy in relation to the future development of the UK’s transport infrastructure and the impact of global trade on the environment.

Project Title: Network for Integrated Retail Logistics
Contact Person: Dr. Carlos Mena
Documentation: NIRL

Short Description: The Network for Integrated Retail Logistics (NIRL) is a focus for research, technology transfer, education and training for optimised solutions in food and non-food retail logistics. It leverages the activities of a broad spectrum of retail supply chain partners in order to research, develop and exploit new systems and technologies for retail logistics.

Project Title: Reverse Logistics
Contact Person: Mike Bernon
Industrial Partners: Entertainment UK, Halfords, Menzies Distribution, PC World, Vivendi Universal Games, Wincanton
Project's Website: Reverse Logistics

Short Description: A two-year research programme being undertaken by the School of Management and Sheffield University with support from the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (UK). As Reverse Logistics is fast becoming an integral discipline within supply chain management the project objective is to develop a set of diagnostic tools to assist organisations implement effective reverse logistics operations. Embedded in the toolkit will be the concept of sustainable distribution. The project will build on work, previously undertaken which estimated that around £5.75 billion goods are being returned within UK high street retailing alone. The logistics costs of handling these returned products were estimated to be £500 million a year.

Project Title: Supply Chain Collaboration
Contact Person: Dr Carlos Mena
Industrial Partners: Coors Brewers, Frontier, Bernard Matthews and Saxon Agriculture
Documentation: Supply Chain Collaboration

Short Description: This project is a three year project in collaboration with Cardiff Business School, supported by the Food Chain Centre and the Home Grown Cereals Authority (HGCA). The project aims to improve collaboration and performance in the UK cereals supply chain by conducting improvement programmes within eight representative supply chains and by disseminating the findings to the wider industry. Each improvement projects will focus on two key aspects of supply chain management: the process (i.e. activities, times and inventories), and the collaborative relationships between supply chain partners.