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Go for gold – winning the supply chain triathlon: creating social, economic and environmental value

Cranfield University, School of Management hosted the 17th annual conference of the Logistics Research Network (LRN 2012) – the premier event of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (UK). The conference held at Cranfield Management Development Centre from 5 to 7 September. LRN conference is well recognised as one of the leading European summits in the fields of logistics, supply chain and freight transport management, where both academic researchers and practitioners present and discuss their research results, current practices, new ideas and future plans. In 2012, the conference attracted 151 delegates from over 20 countries. Totally 92 papers were scheduled for presentation in various research areas including: collaborative planning, event logistics, food supply chains, global supply networks, sustainability and green logistics, humanitarian logistics, IT/e-supply management, lean and agile supply chains, performance measurement, simulation and modelling, supplier relationship management, supply chain risk, supply chain structures, transport operations and planning, and multimodal transport. LRN 2012 also enjoyed the keynote speakers from various logistics and supply chain sectors including: Neil Ashworth (Collect+), Robin Proctor (Travis Perkins), Richard Hunt (London Ambulance Authority), Anthony Spence (The British Museum), and Professor Martin Christopher (Cranfield School of Management). The theme of LRN 2012 was ‘Winning the Supply Chain Triathlon: Creating Social, Economic and Environmental Value’. The contributions to the conference demonstrated the enthusiasm and energy the LRN community has for sustainability issues in research and practice. The contributions included driving positive changes, developing and prototyping new ideas, and creating new paradigms. Social responsibility will be a crucial component and driver of future supply chain competitiveness, and for many organisations, sustainability is already a well-established key performance factor. This special issue of International Journal of Logistics comprises the extended editions of a selection of the most insightful papers from LRN 2012. The papers were selected based on the quality and maturity of research, and their compatibility with the current themes and future directions of the journal. The initial selected papers were all sent to reviewers, and four of them passed the multiple rounds of blind reviews successfully. The final accepted papers are illustrative of the diverse and stimulating contributions that were made. The first paper, ‘Can Locker Box Logistics Enable More Human Centric Medical Supply Chains?’ by Bailey et al., addresses the significance of external–internal supply chain interface in hospitals where the quick delivery of items has very high urgency. The paper recommends and studies the feasibility of unattended electronic locker banks to which individual urgent items