Papers from the 22nd International Symposium on Logistics (ISL)

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-11-2018-345
• Pages: 1122-1124
• Date: 26 October 2018
• Published date: 26 October 2018
• Author: Mohamed M. Naim,Daniel R. Eyers,Andrej Lisec
• Subject Matter: Logistics,Management science & operations

Guest editorial

Papers from the 22nd International Symposium on Logistics (ISL)

The 22nd ISL was hosted in Ljubljana, Slovenia from 9 to 12 July 2017. The conference

represents one of the premier events in the logistics and supply chain management calendar,

each year alternating the venue between Europe and the rest of the world. In 2017, the

conference attracted 95 delegates, with 88 papers scheduled for presentation. There is a

continuing strong world-wide presence with submissions from over 32 different countries.

Hence, the conference is regarded as one of the main international platforms for presenting

and discussing research, practice and new ideas in supply chain, logistics and operations

management with a highly collegial and supportive environment.

Theconferencetheme,“data driven supply chains”, highlighted the potential

exploitation of information systems to extract as much information as possible from

our supply chains to sense how well our logistics operations are performing and to

respond and recover from ever more turbulent events. For example, over the last decade

we have witnessed the financial crisis that has affected the whole world, growing

evidence of human impact on the climate and political discourse, resulting in outright

warfare, insurgencies and/or protectionism by nation states. Private organisations

and policy makers are striving to ensure the sustainability of their operations to

maximise economic impact and societal benefits while concurrently reducing negative

implications for the environment. These include advocacy of closed-loop supply chains,

exploitation of new technologies to manage operations, right-shoring decisions,

informing a nation’s logistics policy and collaborative models to enhance sustainability.

The papers from the 22nd ISL comprise of extended versions of those submitted to the

conference and have been judged as providing the latest insights into logistics research

covering these themes.

A rigorous peer-review process was followed. Of the 88 papers scheduled for the

conference, 27 were shortlisted by a sub-panel of the ISL International Advisory Committee,

based on a combination of their reading of the conference papers, attending presentations

and assessment of feedback from session chairs. An initial desk review was then

undertaken by the guest editors after which 17 were invited to submit papers. Following the

peer-review process prescribed by the International Journal of Logistics Management, and in

line with its editorial policy, we have the final five papers accepted.

In the first paper, Kalverkamp (2018) notes that in research on closed-loop supply

chains, a key contributor to circular economy practices, there is more emphasis on the

reverse flow of goods than with industrial symbiosis. The paper goes on to explore

the opportunity for the development of e-procurement and supplier relationship

management solutions to aid brokers, or scrap dealers, in the European automotive sector

in supplying returned cores to the remanufacturing sector. Given the huge variance in

product returns that brokers encounter, the ability to identify and match returns to user

demand is a daunting challenge. The problem is expounded by the growing number of

independent brokers in the European market. Hence, by comparing European and North

American practises, Kalverkamp’s proposed solution, combining technological and

relational aspects in the open-loop element of the closed-loop supply chain, shows

potential for enhancing data accessibility, for example through vehicle identification

numbers, to ensure valid used parts harvesting. The opportunities are there as brokers

and remanufacturers could collaborate further, both vertically and horizontally, with

minimal need for regulatory intervention.

The International Journal of

Logistics Management

Vol. 29 No. 4, 2018

pp. 1122-1124

© Emerald PublishingLimited

0957-4093

DOI 10.1108/IJLM-11-2018-345

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