Network Innovation - Cold Chain Logistics: PBL case

Is real-time global control of temperature sensitive shipments feasible? Do we want it? Can we deal with it? Is innovation in this field rare and hard to replicate? Could it lead to competitive advantage or should it become an industry-wide capability?

There are numerous challenges to overcome to effectively manage package temperature in supply chains operating over diffuse multi-modal industry networks. Customers increasingly rely on real-time shipping data from the main contractor (the express carrier industry) in order to manage pack temperature or the ambient environment that a shipment encounters. However the multi-modal shipping environment is a heterogenous composite of services provided by various stakeholders (exporters, express operators, air carriers, IT providers, regulatory agencies). All these actors add different capabilities and employ various technologies to create and operate the composite service (safe and secure door to door delivery of the package).

This seminar presents an early-stage case of a industry situation ripe for technologically mediated innovation. The case describes a diverse commercial network of customers, suppliers, and regulatory agencies. As the situation is revealed problems and learning points should be identified from which various innovation trajectories may develop in unpredictable ways.

The seminar is presented by Allen Higgins from UCD's CITO research group (CITO: Centre for Innovation, Technology & Organisation). Allen is a researcher at University College Dublin. His research interests include Interorganisational Network Innovation and Collaboration; taking a social/organizational perspective of the development, implementation and maintenance of technology.