Key Facts:
- Theme Leader: Professor Mohamed Naim
- Theme Focused Projects: McCLOSM, F2F, S-DAMS, Green Logistics (EPSRC), ELM (with DfT), MOOGL, UK Food Supply for the 21st Century (with Chatham House), PLIP & SCEIM (both start Oct’07)
- Other Associated Projects: KTPs, C-STEPS (Starts Q4’07/Q1’08)
- Associated Research Team: Professor Mohamed Naim, Dr Gilbert Aryee, Yingli Wang, Mandip Sarana, Robert Mason, Professor Stefan Dimov, Mr Alex Noyvirt, Mrs Val Valeva, Dr Andrew Potter, Dr Andrew Thomas, Dr Sharon Williams (now at University of Warwick), Dr. Ashraf Afify, Dr Christine Mumford (Computer Science), Dr Chris Jones (Computer Science), Dr Steve Disney, Kate Bailey, Dave Simons, Ben Waller
Theme Vision
An holistic approach to reengineering the supply chain is required, with due consideration of technical, people, process, environmental and financial issues, in order to ensure system wide optimisation rather than achieving local optima. In order to achieve this vision, our research has looked at enabling a more effective use of finite logistics resources whilst maintaining the greatest consumer choice in product as well as the time and place of delivery/sale. We have also undertaken studies into how new innovative modelling techniques and ICT can be developed from current existing approaches, and/or invented, to support new sustainable logistics structures more effectively. The Sustainable Logistics theme aims to contribute to the Sustainability of UK Manufacturing by improving its ability to better manage the supply chain “end to end”, ensuring that everyone in the chain focuses on end customer service while sharing risk and rewards through waste minimisation, both in economic and environmental terms.
Phase | Project | Economic | Environmental | Social |
| 1 | McCLOSM | 80% | 10% | 10% |
| 1 | F2F (Complete) | 95% | 5% | 0% |
| 1 | S-DAMS | 95% | 5% | 0% |
| 2 | ELM | 80% | 20% | 0% |
| 2 | Green Logistics | 30% | 40% | 30% |
| 2 | MOOGL | 40% | 40% | 20% |
| 3 | UK Food Supply in the 21st Century | 30% | 30% | 40% |
| 3 | PLIP (Starts Oct’07) | 50% | 30% | 20% |
| 3 | SCEIM (Starts Oct’07) | 50% | 40% | 10% |
Overview of Activities
This inter-disciplinary Theme has strong industry, government and trade involvement, with industry representation from the transport, retail, steel, construction, gas and furniture sectors. The Department for Transport also acts in an advisory role to both the Theme and the CUIMRC Steering Group. We additionally work with various trade & professional associations, including the Road Haulage Association, the Construction Industry Training Board, ukfirst and the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. We also work closely with colleagues in other universities (in addition to the 5 other universities of the Green Logistics consortium, described below) including CUIMRC ‘Alumni’ at Hull (McCLOSM) and Warwick (F2F) while a Professor of Process Automation, Nina Thornhill of Imperial College is a visiting researcher on the McCLOSM project. Six projects are currently (fully or partly) supported by CUIMRC funding through this theme, with two more approved for funding & due to start in October 2007: -
- McCLOSM Flagship - developing a framework for mass customised logistics by researching its antecedents including people (collaboration), technology (ICT) and process (supply chain strategy). In particular, the research is creating a route map for establishing tripartite collaborative arrangements between manufacturers (suppliers), customers and carriers (logistics and transport operators)
- F2F – a pilot study with ukfirst (the furniture industry’s trade association) that has developed the furniture industry’s understanding of current supply chain behaviours and possible future state scenarios for product customisation in light of challenges from globalisation and emerging economies. The F2F team has recently reported to the UK Furniture Industry’s 2006 Annual Conference.
- S-DAMS – started in October 2005, this is fundamental research exploring the issue of supply chain information structures enabled by ICT and their impact on system control, robustness and complexity.
- ELM – Linked to McCLOSM, we have also received funding from the Department for Transport (DfT) to investigate how Electronic Logistics Marketplaces (ELMs) benefit supply chains as a whole. The ELM project is developing a DfT best practice guide on the enablers and inhibitors to the adoption of ELMs as well as identifying a framework for shippers and carriers to use them.
- MOOGL is a DTG PhD project looking at the establishment of multi-objective optimisation criteria and routines for ‘gold-green’ logistics. The PhD student is primarily supervised by Cardiff University’s School of Computer Science, with secondary supervision provided by CUIMRC academics in Cardiff Business School.
- ‘UK Food Supply in the 21st Century: managing the strategic risk’. This pilot project, in collaboration with Chatham House, aims to develop a holistic understanding of the challenges facing key actors and policy makers across the agri-food industry sector in order to ensure a sustainable food supply to the UK consumer.
- PLIP, starting in October 2007, aims to consider the wider supply chain implications of using pipelines for the movement of palletised goods.
- SCEIM, starting in October 2007, aims to develop the building blocks for the creation of a new supply chain model in order to achieve ‘holistic, supply chain wide’ environmental and operational performance enhancement by concentrating on systematically reducing the energy consumption created through the operation of the supply chain system as it manufactures products. SCEIM proposes a new management system using the energy footprint as a driver for change.
In addition, CUIMRC acts as the administrative hub for the Green Logistics consortium, established under the auspices of EPSRC’s Sustainable Distribution Programme. As well as CUIMRC, the consortium includes Cardiff’s school of Computer Science as well as transport and operations research specialists from the Universities of Leeds, Herriot-Watt, Westminster, Southampton and Lancaster. We consider our involvement in this project to be a key development in extending our logistics related work, through collaboration, beyond the historical economic focus of the CUIMRC towards environmental and social sustainability.
