Natural Disasters and their Effect on the Supply Chain

Introduction

Search engines or databases are important when carrying out research. Databases are a means of storage of information regarding various researches done in the past. Search engines, on the other hand, help in finding the contents of a given study as the researcher demands. This paper will explore the problem of the study and solution, and form a thesis statement regarding the same. The paper will also outline the various search engines used and the most appropriate ones, according to the researcher.

Problem

Many companies have undergone losses due to the delayed supply chain that eventually leads to delayed delivery of the final product. One of the principal causes of delayed stages of the supply chain is natural disasters. These include issues like floods, earthquake, tornadoes, landslides, tsunamis among others. Delay of the supply chain activities is one of the effects caused by natural disasters. The paper will explore other effects impacted on the supply chain.

Solution

The term natural implies that those disasters are unavoidable. The solution to the effects caused by these disasters is inventing new ideas of delivering the final product or setting up a contingency plan to prevent any distortion of the supply chain even when the disasters happen. This could include switching of activities or employing other methods to help keep the schedule as already formulated, as done in Japan.

Thesis Statement

Natural disasters have been observed in the past as being major limitations to the activities of businesses; hence, there is the need to examine the effects these disasters pose to the supply chain and come up with probable solutions.

Being an academic student, I have used a lot of search engines in the past when doing some research papers. Three of those search engines and databases have been most helpful compared to the rest. The first database is the Social Science Research Network. The link to this database can be retrieved from papers.ssrn.com/sol3. The database is categorized according to the areas of study one is undertaking.  The database contains a search engine that outlines the academic papers done relating to the subject matter. The database also referred to as elibrary, is flexible in that the researcher can access the library through the author of the paper, abstract, journal, topic or JEL list of topics.

Natural disasters related to the scientist in a way. I will explore the Scirus search engine with the context of finding journals and website information regarding the disasters, and how they affected some of the operations in the companies those scientists work. This search engine can be accessed from www.scirus.com. In my own opinion, the final best search engine that will be used is the Directory of Open Access Journals. The engine comprises of both journals and articles. The search engine has also narrowed the search to countries. This will help greatly in searching for journals in countries where the disasters have already happened. The search engine will be retrieved from www.doaj.org/doaj. The only limitation of this engine is that it contains journals and articles only. Other links that contain books and blogs relative to the subject matter will also be employed to help diversify the scope of the study.

The three options available will help in coming up with great research given the diversity of the journals and the accuracy of the information in those articles and academic papers researched. The paper will also employ other search engines like Bing and Yahoo to gain access to various impacts caused by natural disasters all over the world. A successful paper will be determined by the content of the information acquired from the links stated above.