Theses and Dissertations
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- Creators: Department of Supply Chain Management
Purpose: This paper serves to illustrate the risks that affect multinational organizations during this new era of global production and increased supply chain complexity. This paper also strives to showcase the benefits of conducting a Network Optimization analysis on a firm’s logistics system including but not limited to reducing the impact of supply chain market and operational risk, improving efficiency, and increasing cost savings across the organization. Approach: This paper will have two main sections beginning with an in depth look into the theory supporting supply chain logistics network optimizations. Through this literature review, the best practices in the industry will be compared to risk mitigation methodology to determine an analytical process that can be applied to companies considering conducting a network optimization. The second stage of this paper takes a clinical look at the aerospace industry and the implementation process of a Logistics Network Optimization at an industry leader to ultimately recommend additional considerations they should implement into their process. Recommendation: To ensure the effective adoption of a network optimization in the aerospace industry, and other manufacturing industries, the maintenance of logistics data and creation of long term 3PL partnerships are needed for success. It is also important to frame a network optimization not as an operational project, but rather a critical business process aimed to mitigate risk within the supply chain though a four-stage risk identification process.
This paper examines how marketing has been used as a tool to promote awareness among consumers about environmental issues and to encourage them to make sustainable choices. Marketing campaigns have been instrumental in the widespread adoption of sustainable practices such as recycling, second-hand shopping, and reducing personal waste. As consumers become more conscious of their choices, companies use green marketing to capitalize on these social trends. While many companies do have the intent to sell a truly sustainable product to fulfill customer needs, others simply use the label to profit, without putting forth a sustainable product. This practice is referred to as “greenwashing.” The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has put forth regulatory guidelines to combat this issue, but does not seem to have the necessary resources to penalize companies who do not follow the regulations. In fact, there are many guidelines that are optional for companies to follow, but not mandatory, making it difficult to spot false claims. We conducted two surveys of over 300 college students to assess their perceptions of sustainability and how it influences their everyday choices. We asked questions about perceived sustainability of various brands, some of which with known sustainability campaigns, and others without. We found that many students hold similar perceptions of sustainability and saw interesting trends in how sustainability affects their day-to-day purchase habits.