November 2024
20 November Exploring the impact of university-driven supplier development interventions on supplier performance: a case of the garment industry
New paper from Seyed Pendar Toufighi, Jan Vang, Kannan Govindan, Amanda Bille, Min Zar Ni Lin.
International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management
1 November Professor Atanu Choudhuri , Department of Management and Marketing, Durham University Business School, Durham, UK, will present and elaborate on his recent paper, Impact pathways: digital product passport for embedding circularity in electronics supply chains, in a GSP research seminar. The focus on digital product passports is a highly relevant and timely topic for supply chain scholars.
October 2024
On 21 October 2024 Julie Bundgaard will defend his PhD Thesis "Lens of labour - Improving social audits in the Bangladeshi garment industry through the eyes and voices of garment workers". The defense starts at 10.00 in Room Luftskibet in Copenhagen.
September 2024
At a seminar on 24 September Britta Gammelgaard presented her newest research on communities of practice. Furthermore, Philip Beske-Janssen presented snippets of three papers within the field of sustainable supply chain management. Please feel free to contact them for more information about their papers.
On 9-10 September Jan Vang, will attend the workshop Health in the Anthropocene in Firenze. Jan will be giving a keynote here zooming in on interventions research and health in the Global south.
June 2024
Together with her colleagues Liliane Carmagnac and Victoria Stephens, Amanda Bille received the EurOMA Early Career Researcher Networking Grant 2023 with the aim of fostering international collaboration between young scholars. Over the last year, the researchers have – together with Jan Vang and Min Zar Ni Lin from GSP – been working on a paper with the purpose of understanding the competing discourses on decent work in the garment industry. The result of the collaboration is to be presented by Bille, Carmagnac and Stephens at the EurOMA conference in Barcelona this summer under the headline “Thriving whilst surviving: Exploring the prevailing discourse of decent work”
May 2024
Guidebook in Burmese on 5S for industry participants
Jan Vang and colleagues are publishing a guidebook in Burmese on how to implement 5S for enhancing social sustainability and productivity among local garment suppliers. This guidebook will help improve both production efficiency for the companies and working environment for workers in the garment industry.
Workshop on 5S for industry participants
On 11 May Jan Vang and colleagues organized a workshop with 71 industry participants on how to simultaneously enhance social sustainability and productivity among suppliers in the garment industry. The event took place in Myanmar, with introduction and closure by Jan Vang online.
The participants included representatives from two global buyers, representatives from international suppliers, management representatives (especially CoC persons), and production floor representatives.
The workshop conveyed how a process-oriented improvement would help improve supplier capabilities beyond compliance with the Code of Conduct. At the workshop an implementation guidebook was presented which provides all procedures necessary for implementation of 5S. Furthermore, international suppliers were encouraged to advise their factories in Myanmar to carry out these best practices.
Furthermore, the message of the importance of institutionalizing 5S lean practices through top management support, mid-level management effort, and frontline worker’s participation was presented to the representatives from factories. The ergonomic principle is a win-win strategy for both employers and employees and will lead to long term results.
December 2023
Seminar on "The rise of AI in SCM"
Tuesday 5 December, Global Sustainable Production at SDU hosted an inspiring seminar with Assistant Professor Christian Hendriksen from Copenhagen Business School to mark the end of the semester.
Christian shared his thoughts on the rise of AI in SCM – both from a practice perspective and from a research perspective. AI is here to stay. That became clear from Christian’s presentation. However, he also stressed that human researchers and supply chain managers will not necessarily be replaced by artificial intelligence. AI can be used to free up time for tasks that require creativity, novel thinking, and innovation. AI is not a replacement of human thought – but it can be a good supplement to many work processes.
November 2023
Coffee flowers – from waste to value Project
News on trip to Uganda (Photos above)
From the 15th to the 25th of November, Prof Jan Vang, and post doc- Idongesit Williams, from SDU Global Sustainable Production in partnership with Helene Balslev Clausen, Associate Professor, Department of Culture and Learning, Aalborg University made a return trip to Uganda.
This time, the team embarked on capacity development initiative to activate the supply side of the Coffee flower supply chain in Uganda. On the supply side are coffee farmers working under extension workers within the Coffee cooperatives. Trainer of trainers (extension workers) were trained on how to produce quality coffee flowers, how to ensure that the picking of coffee flowers does not affect their yield and how to build sunbeds to dry coffee flowers. Post trip, the trainer of trainers will reach out to 10000 farmers via capacity building events, where farmers will be trained on regenerative farming, and on how to pick, preserve and store coffee flowers. The training initiatives will empower the farmers to become an active part of the Coffee flower supply chain in Uganda.
As part of the project, the team in collaboration with the SDU Drone section the team will train farmers on how to use drone to assist implement sustainable water usage in the farm. This will take place in January. The other critical partners are NARO in Uganda, PAD&T and Fasterholt.
The training initiative is part of the DEG financed project on Turning Coffee Waste into Value. The project develops a supply chain for the commercialization of coffee waste products, such as coffee flowers. The training of the farmers is aimed at activating the supply – side stakeholders within the supply chain. The trained 5000 cooperative extension workers will train 10,000 farmers in total.
In week 43 - October 2023
In week 43 , Global Sustainable Production had two international researchers visit postdoctoral researcher Amanda Bille. Victoria Stephens (University of Manchester) and Liliane Carmagnac (Excelia Group) visited the section for an inspiring research seminar on decent work in garment supply chains. The three researchers had three very fruitful days with interesting discussions as a part of the collaboration funded by the European Operations Management Association (EurOMA) Early Career Researcher Networking Grant.
10 October 2023
At the EU-OSHA workshop Peter Hasle presented findings showing how supply chain management both create problems and consitute opportunities. You will find slides at Peters LinkedIn profile
2 October 2023
Book Chapter by Jan Vang:Sustainability Themes in the Garment Industry: Insights from a Workshop in Bangladesh (https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110795431-009 )in Fashion and Environmental Sustainability - Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology. De Gruyter. 2023.
18-30 September 2023
Working on the project "Coffee flowers – from waste to value" Jan Vang and Idongesit Williams in partnership with Helene Balslev Clausen from Department of Culture and Learning at Aalborg university, travelled to Uganda.
The purpose of the trip was to train and co-create knowledge with 500 cooperative extension workers on sustainable and regenerative coffee farms. In this trip, the trainers engaged in co-creation activities aimed at the development of a healthy coffee farm. This is aimed at ensuring that farmers produce good coffee and coffee flower yield. Post trip, the training is ongoing online.
The team will return to Uganda later in the year, to co create knowledge with the trainees on how to pick, preserve and store coffee flowers. Then in collaboration with SDU Drone section the team will train farmers on how to use drone to assist implement sustainable water usage in the farm.
The training initiative is part of the DEG financed project on Turning Coffee Waste into Value.
The project develops a supply chain for the commercialization of coffee waste products, such as coffee flowers. The training of the farmers is aimed at activating the supply – side stakeholders within the supply chain. The trained 5,000 cooperative extension workers will train 10,000 farmers in total.
20 June 2023
Mohammad, A., Hamja, A. and Hasle, P. (2023), "Reduction of changeover time through SMED with RACI integration in garment factories", International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. (https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLSS-10-2021-0176)
17 June 2023
Vang, J., Maalouf, M., Hasle, P. (2023). United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and Global Supplier Development: Insights from the Global Garment Industry. In: Akande, A. (eds) Globalization, Human Rights and Populism. Springer, Cham. (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17203-8_34)
14 -17 June 2023
At the Regional Studies Association Annual Conference, Professor Jan Vang will present two papers on Global innovation network:
The role of female entrepreneurs in understanding global innovation dynamics with a focus on the Global South
and
The role of global innovation networks in explaining sustainability transitions in the Global South
22 May 2023
Public Defence of PhD Thesis (at CBS):
No business without politics: Investigating the political nature of supply chain management by Research Assistant Amanda Bille
Global crises are making it harder to navigate the complexity of supply chain management (SCM), and "business as usual" can no longer sufficiently cope with the challenges managers experience in relation to both social and environmental sustainability. Awareness is spreading in the SCM research community that new perspectives that challenge the status quo are needed. This research joins this discussion by providing a political perspective on SCM. Over the course of five articles and a cape, a range of methods, theories, and philosophies are explored and applied, ultimately leading to a conclusion that helps decomplexifying SCM for both managers and researchers: SCM is a political activity.
Amanda Bille was supervised by Andreas Wieland and Philip Beske-Janssen. The assessment committee was chaired by Britta Gammelgaard and consisted of Anne Touboulic and Peter Hasle as external members.
Amanda Bille will be continuing her research at University of Southern Denmark as a postdoctoral researcher in Global Sustainable Production.
27 April 2023
Professor Peter Hasle gave a presentation in Danish: Triple Helix – en mulig ramme for samarbejde
You can read more about this in Danish if you click on Danish in the top right corner of this page.
24 April 2023
PhD candidate Julie Bundgaard and co-author Tanja Godtthardsen published 2 feature articles
The titles - were they in English - would be "The clothing industry is - still - build on poverty and blood" and "Rana Plaza collapsed 10 years ago but the extreme inequality in the clothing industry still demands action"
You can read more about this in Danish if you click on Danish in the top right corner of this page.
17 April 2023
PhD candidate Julie Bundgaard releases an audiobook
The title - were it in English - would be "There is blood on your clothing, Julie"
You can read more about this in Danish if you click on Danish in the top right corner of this page.
18 December 2022
The section is responsible for establishing a Task force that can help Bangladesh overcoming their sustainability challenges.
Task force meeting: Solving Bangladesh’s future challenges in the context of global supply chains A Triple Helix approach to collaboration between industry, government and universities
14-15 December 2022
The section organises a global workshop in Dhaka Bangladesh about how to address global sustainability challenges
Solving Bangladesh’s future challenges in the context of global supply chains A Triple Helix approach to collaboration between industry, government, and universities. The workshop is financed by Danida.
18 November 2022
The section hosts a research seminar with Professor Veronica Villena, the seminar is about Global Sustainable Supply Chains