Arni Halldorsson

• ​Purchasing & Supply Management TEK 416 (masters course in the Supply Chain Management programme)
• Service  Management TEK 590 (masters level, elective course)
• Sustainable Logistics ITR 361 (masters level, elective)
  
• Sourcing Strategies (professional education)

Sustainable supply

My current research is perhaps best summarised as sustainable supply. Sustainable supply refers to structures and management of supply chains where economic, environmental, and social performance intersect. Here I seek to respond to and further shape societal challenges such as sustainable development (e.g. climate change, resource utilisation) as well as the industrial challenge of digitalisation, servitisation, and the ‘knowing-doing gap’ of ‘how to make it happen’. This is based upon recent developments in the field of supply chain management and logistics, and related disciplines of services management, operations management, and organisation theory. On the backdrop of this, sustainable supply seeks to develop principles for improved practice, in which people play a key role.

The first stream of research focuses on sustainable logistics services:

• *The Fifth Fuel - Energy Efficiency Through Effective Freight Transport in Sustainable Urban Areas
• *ELIN -- Energy Efficiency of Logistics Services – Inside Out
• Sustainable supply chain design
• Sourcing strategies for sustainable supply
• Sustainable operations through lean energy
  

The second stream of research focuses on emerging technology in the supply chain, and seeks to combine the implications of sustainability and digitalisation through the concept of ‘services’ in the wider context of a supply chain. Parts of this research focuses on logistics services providers, their customers and end-users (service triads):

• Logistics services
• Service triads (providers, customers, end-users)
• After-market supply chains (connected vehicles)
• Service bundles and digitally connected services in the supply chain
• Employee flexibility in operations in the era of digitalization

The third stream of research refers to theory and methodology required to deliver into the promise of ‘principles’ and ‘practices’ through ‘people’. This is primarily driven by:

• Theorizing through conceptualization and frameworks, through ‘sensitivity to the context’ and through application of concepts and frameworks (see e.g. Halldórsson et al. 2007; Halldórsson et al. 2015).  
• Developing appropriate methodology (research methods and –processes) that promote creation of actionable knowledge. This is to a large extent informed by critical realism, and it’s view on context, open systems, and generative mechanisms that possess causal power (that may or may not be actualized). See e.g. Aastrup and Halldórsson (2008).

 *Funded by the Swedish Energy Agency, Logistik och transportstiftelsen (LTS) and Chalmers Area of Advance Transport.