Global or Local? Making Location Decisions in Supply Chain Design

Kalra, Jas ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3845-7896, Roehrich, Jens and Squire, Brian (2018) Global or Local? Making Location Decisions in Supply Chain Design. The Case Centre.

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Abstract

The case provides an illustration of a myriad of economic, political, and social factors that influence sourcing decisions in the outsourcing of service operations. It encourages students to appreciate the dilemma of a Commercial Director who has to decide whether to source from global and more established suppliers or local and relatively less established suppliers (global vs. local sourcing). This is done through the illustration of a megaproject, Hinkley Point C (HPC), which is being designed and delivered by EDF Energy. Students will learn to appreciate how trivial service sourcing decisions become complicated by the highly political nature of megaprojects and the complexity of the service being procured. Due to its rare focus on the intersection of supply chain management, services, and projects, the case has proven to be popular in operations, supply management, as well as project management classes, with both undergraduate and postgraduate students. The case has been developed from extensive interviews with senior managers from HPC and its suppliers. The teaching note includes a detailed instruction and plan of how to deliver the case to a range of students. The case was taught to students in two of the top business schools in the UK.