Purpose – An underlying principle of supply chain management is to establish control of the end‐to‐end process in order to create a seamless flow of goods. The basic idea is that variability is detrimental to performance as it causes cost in the form of stock‐outs, poor capacity...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of decentralised control on finished goods inventory levels in a distribution system, and to identify the factors that determine the overall inventory level. Design/methodology/approach – The authors' study is based on a mixed...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an update to the Supply Chain Volatility Index (SCVI), and expand on prior work by presenting a conceptual framework illustrating how firms can deal with persistent volatility, the ensuing risk and mitigate the cost implications for their supply...