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The systems approach is an exemplar of design science research (DSR), whereby specific designs yield generic knowledge. DSR is increasingly being adopted in logistics and operations management research, but many point to neglect of the human aspects of solutions developed. The authors argue that it is possible to look back at the history of the systems movement to seek precedent for ‘dealing’ with the social components, providing a methodologically pluralistic ‘research design’ framework. Thereby, systems approaches are foundational to providing a design-based ‘science’ to progressing the logistics and supply chain management field, dealing with contemporary topics such as resilience.

The authors undertake a discursive assessment of relevant streams of engineering, social science and systems research, with a conceptual development of how the latter influences supply chain design approaches.

Building on a phenomenological framework, the authors create a generic design science research design (DSRD) that enables researchers to choose and integrate the right tools and methods to address simple, complicated and complex problems, dealing with technological, process and social problems.

The DSRD provides a framework by which to exploit a range of methodological stances to problem solving, including quantitative modelling perspectives and ‘soft’ systems social science approaches. Four substantive gaps are identified for future research – establishing the root cause domain of the problem, how to deal with the hierarchy of systems within systems, establishing appropriate criteria for the solution design and how best to deal with chaotic and disordered systems.

The authors argue that the systems approaches offer methodological pluralism by which a generic DSRD may be applied to enhance supply chain design. The authors show the relevance of the DSRD to supply chain design problems including in reducing supply chain dynamics and enhance resilience. In doing so, the study points towards an integrated perspective and future research agenda for designing resilient supply chains.

The customer order decoupling point (CODP) concept addresses the issue of customer engagement in the manufacturing process. This has traditionally been applied to material flows, but has more recently been applied to engineering activities. This later subject becomes of particular importance to companies operating in “engineer-to-order” (ETO) supply chains, where each order is potentially unique. Existing conceptualisations of ETO are too generic for practical purposes, so there is a need to better understand order penetration in the context of engineering activities, especially design. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to address the question “how do customer penetration concepts apply to engineering design activities?”

A collaborative form of inquiry is adopted, whereby academics and practitioners co-operated to develop a conceptual framework. Within this overarching research design, a focus group of senior practitioners and multiple case studies principally from complex civil and structural engineering as well as scientific equipment projects are used to explore the framework.

The framework results in a classification of nine potential engineering subclasses, and insight is given into order penetration points, major uncertainties and enablers via the case studies. Focus group findings indicate that different managerial approaches are needed across subclasses.

The findings give insight for companies that engage directly with customers on a one-to-one basis, outlining the extent of customer penetration in engineering activities, associated operational strategies and choices regarding the co-creation of products with customers. Care should be taken in generalising beyond the sectors addressed in the study.

The paper refines the definition of the ETO concept, and gives a more complete understanding of customer penetration concepts. It provides a comprehensive reconceptualization of the ETO category, supported by exploratory empirical research.

This paper aims to explore social responsibility reporting of full-fledged Islamic banks in two developing countries, namely, Indonesia and Malaysia. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an important aspect of business society. As such, companies have shown a growing interest in reporting their social and environmental initiatives.

Content analysis of the annual reports for three full-fledged local Islamic banks in Indonesia and three Islamic banks in Malaysia was carried out for the period of 2007-2011.

Results of the study revealed that CSR disclosure of Islamic banks has generally grown both in Malaysia and Indonesia. More specifically, it was found that workplace and community dimensions were the most highly disclosed areas by the Islamic banks in both countries.

The current study provides a cross-cultural perspective on social responsibility disclosure in Islamic banks across two countries. The study is limited by investigating a five-year time frame.

By discussing the findings according to the stages of growth model for CSR, the authors suggest that Islamic banks can enhance their responsiveness, and transform their role from being CSR reporters of social responsibility to responders.

While the tenets of CSR have a lot in common with Islamic moral law (Shariah), little is known about CSR disclosure of Islamic banks.

Flexibility is a fundamental performance objective for manufacturing operations, allowing them to respond to changing requirements in uncertain and competitive global markets. Additive manufacturing machines are often described as “flexible,” but there is no detailed understanding of such flexibility in an operations management context. The purpose of this paper is to examine flexibility from a manufacturing systems perspective, demonstrating the different competencies that can be achieved and the factors that can inhibit these in commercial practice.

This study extends existing flexibility theory in the context of an industrial additive manufacturing system through an investigation of 12 case studies, covering a range of sectors, product volumes, and technologies. Drawing upon multiple sources, this research takes a manufacturing systems perspective that recognizes the multitude of different resources that, together with individual industrial additive manufacturing machines, contribute to the satisfaction of demand.

The results show that the manufacturing system can achieve seven distinct internal flexibility competencies. This ability was shown to enable six out of seven external flexibility capabilities identified in the literature. Through a categorical assessment the extent to which each competency can be achieved is identified, supported by a detailed explanation of the enablers and inhibitors of flexibility for industrial additive manufacturing systems.

Additive manufacturing is widely expected to make an important contribution to future manufacturing, yet relevant management research is scant and the flexibility term is often ambiguously used. This research contributes the first detailed examination of flexibility for industrial additive manufacturing systems.

A number of governments are making building information modeling (BIM) a mandatory requirement for all public works construction projects. While main contractors may be ready to comply with such requirements, the supply chain as whole may be vulnerable as lower-tier suppliers may not be able to adopt BIM. There is currently no objective approach to assessing BIM maturity; hence, this paper aims to develop a new approach to determine suppliers’ current vision and execution-based capabilities to exploit BIM and their capacity to reach a higher maturity level.

Based on UK Government BIM maturity levels, the authors exploit a unique data set made available by a main contractor, to determine a data-driven approach, using K-means, to assess the capabilities and vision of its supply base.

The authors find a direct comparison between our suggested K-means clusters and the UK Government’s BIM maturity levels. However, in interrogating specific cases, the authors find that using a subjective approach would have wrongly categorized certain companies. The authors also determine what capability and strategic developments are required for companies to move to a higher level.

The method aligns with the existing UK BIM maturity model and enhances the model by determining the likelihood of a supplier in progressing to a higher level of maturity. The research was with a single case company, exploiting their existing survey instrument and data. A more comprehensive study could be adopted with a generic survey questionnaire.

The research may be exploited by companies to take a strategic approach to assess suppliers in BIM adoption and to establish supplier development mechanisms.

The data-driven approach avoids ambiguity of categories and mis-categorizing suppliers.

There is little published work regarding value and waste in UK housebuilding supply chains. In this paper, we review the current status of research in supply chains generally and housebuilding supply chains specifically. The “wastes” and “values” within housebuilding supply chains are identified and categorized and some key potential improvement methodologies are proposed. Starting from the concepts of “value” and “waste”, relevant supply chain models are evaluated and a case study is used to suggest improvements towards a more efficient housebuilding supply chain. Finally, we present a template for waste detection in housebuilding supply chains.

Shukla et al. (2012) proposed a signature and index to detect and measure rogue seasonality in supply chains, but which, however, were not effectively validated. The authors have sought to investigate rogue seasonality using control theory and realistic multi echelon systems and rigorously validate these measures, so as to enable their application in practice. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Frequency domain analysis of single echelon and simulated four echelon Beer game system outputs are used in the investigation, with the simulation incorporating realistic features such as non-linearities from backlogs and batching, hybrid make to order-make to stock ordering system and the shipment variable. Lead time, demand process parameters, ordering parameters and batch size are varied in the simulation to rigorously assess the validity of the index.

The signature based on the cluster profiles of variables, specifically whether the variables cluster together with or away from exogenous demand, was validated. However, a threshold for the proportion of variables that could be clustered with exogenous demand and the system still being classified as exhibiting rogue seasonality, would require to be specified. The index, which is derived by quantifying the cluster profile relationships, was found to be a valid and robust indicator of the intensity of rogue seasonality, and which did not need any adjustments of the kind discussed for the signature. The greater effectiveness of the frequency domain in comparison to time for deriving the signature and index was demonstrated.

This work enables speedy assessment of rogue seasonality in supply chains which in turn ensures appropriate and timely action to minimize its adverse consequences.

Detailed and specific investigation on rogue seasonality using control theory and Beer game simulation and rigorous validation of the signature and index using these methods.

The “Law of Industrial Dynamics” is a well‐known phenomenon which leads to significant swings in demand as orders are passed down along a supply chain. Large fluctuations in demand result for the manufacturer leading to policies which counteract the objectives of materials logistics management which are to reduce inventories while maintaining strategic stocks, improve product quality, minimize the total cost of operations and procurement, ensure service levels to customers and minimize variance in material flow. A number of strategies have been advocated and applied which may be summarized as integrating the supply chain and adopting lean manufacturing techniques. Such strategies encompass three main factors, classified as technological (which may include adopting electronic data interchange), organizational (such as moving towards focused plants) and attitudinal (such as the adoption of Partnership Sourcing as a strategy). This paper provides a framework in which systems dynamics modeling, analysis and simulation aids in the decision making process to establish how best to achieve the materials logistics management objectives. Firstly, during the modeling and analysis phase, the supply chain champion is provided with insight as to the effectiveness of the current supply chain design to damp down order fluctuations. Secondly, on the basis of continuous improvement, simulation then allows him to re‐engineer the supply chain by asking “what if?” questions and assessing the relative benefits of various strategies against the financial and attitudinal costs of implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to refine a logistics triad uncertainty model taking a supply chain perspective, to determine and assess the different causes and sources of supply chain uncertainty that impact on the sustainability of the UK road freight transport sector.

To clarify the link between sustainability and transport uncertainty, a methodological triangulation strategy is applied combining the results of eight focus groups and an online structured questionnaire.

The findings indicate that the main drivers impacting the sustainability of transport operations are delays, variable demand/poor information, delivery constraints and insufficient supply chain integration. The consequence of these problems is to reduce the efficiency of transport operations.

The model has been refined based only on participants' perceptions. Therefore, the finding should also be verified through the investigation of real‐world situations. Moreover, the transport uncertainty model needs to be incorporated within a wider business process re‐engineering approach to evaluate solutions to reduce transport uncertainty within supply chains.

The findings further strengthen the understanding of the main uncertainty sources within supply chains in the UK. The internal root causes of uncertainty can be mitigated while external issues have to be accommodated; therefore, mitigation techniques, methods and strategies for reducing external and internal supply chain uncertainty in transport operations need to be identified through the research.

This paper determines the industry perceived economic and environmental risks associated with transport operations in four UK sectors.