Supply Chain Business Research Articles

Does service innovation matter? An empirical study on market orientation and supply chain performance

The objective of this study was to explore how firm service innovation mediates market orientation and business performance. This paper begins with a literature review indicating the themes from which we developed our conceptual framework. Structural equation modeling based on a cross-section (n = 260) of 5 years of supply chain business data (2009–2013) in Greater China was conducted. We concluded that firm market orientation and service innovation exert significantly positive effects on business performance. In addition, the results supported our model that market orientation is mediated by the effect of service innovation on business performance. Market orientation and service innovation had a stronger combined effect on business performance than market orientation alone did. This paper provides implications for how firms can be more effectively synergized amid challenges and gain a competitive advantage in the global supply chain.

Bimodal, Multimodal or Platform – What is a Supply Chain Future Strategy?

This paper examines the idea of supply chain strategy in terms of ICT influence on supply chain business model. The aim is to present the most important technologies – Social, Mobile, Analytics (based on Big Data) and Cloud Computing – as the main enablers for reaching competitive advantages by supply chain strategy. Analysis are based on literature and market studies reviews supported by author’s empirical research results on supply chain manager’s perception on future supply chain development. During the analysis conducted in the paper the definitions of supply chain strategy and supply chain business model was introduced. Further the next phase of supply chain evolution was identified and the base for this new phase – the internet platform based on cloud computing – introduced. This solution, together with the rest SMAC technologies, creates new approach on how flows within supply chains are managed. Due to new potential created by SMAC and ubiquitous uncertainty managers should revise the ability to create multimodal supply chain strategy. That strategy is supported by customised supply chain business models able to meet events in the unpredictable environmental framework. The base for multimodal supply chain strategy development is market segmentation where the differentiator is described by value perceived by particular customer.

A Concept of Simulation-based SC Performance Analysis Using SCOR Metrics

The paper discusses a common approach to describing and analysing supply chains between simulation specialists and supply chain managers, which is based on Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model indicators and metrics. SCOR is a reference model of supply chain business processes. It is based on best practices and used in various business areas of supply chains. Supply chain performance indicators are defined by numerous measurable SCOR metrics. Some metrics can be estimated with simulation models. For an efficient supply chain analysis, one should evaluate the conformity of SCOR metrics with simulation-based assessment of performance indicators. Analysing projects in Supply Chain (SC) modelling area as well as analysing types of simulation results enables one to assess the conformity of the simulation-based performance indicators with SCOR model metrics of different levels. Supply chain simulation modelling coordinated with the SCOR model expands the scope of simulation model applications for analysing supply chain performance indicators. It helps one estimate specific metrics with simulation results.

Impact of supply chain structure on business performance: a proposed model

The relationship between supply chain structure and business performance is a research area with limited application, even the impact of supply chain structure deserves more in-depth scrutiny through different dimensions on business performance. The purpose of this study is twofold, namely first addressing the gap in the investigation of the impact of supply chain structure on business performance in the context of pharmaceutical industry, and second to propose a conceptual model consisting of the relationships between each of multinationality, product originality and ownership structure and both supply chain structure and business performance. This study acts as an initiator for paying special attention to the supply chain structure and its relationships with different factors, and strategic dimension of the supply chain in terms of creating competitive advantage. For the practitioners, this study indicates the importance of being informed about the supply chain structures to perceive the strategic dimension of supply chain management in the creation of competitive advantage.

An integrated approach with SEM, fuzzy-QFD and MLP for supply chain management strategy development

This study proposes an integrated approach to determine the most suitable strategies, based on structural equation modelling (SEM), fuzzy-QFD, and multi-objective linear programming model (MLP). The relationships between supply chain capabilities, competitive advantages, and business performance are identified using SEM. An integrated SEM and fuzzy-QFD approach is proposed to transform the significant factors into SCM strategies. Then, MLP model is applied to identify suitable strategic actions according to multiple conflicting objectives under a budget constraint. A case study from the Vietnamese food industry is given to illustrate the proposed methodology. The outcome of the study reveals that companies should pay more attention to supply chain capabilities for SCM strategy development, which can help to gain improvement of their competitiveness and business performance. The proposed methodology also provides a comprehensive picture for companies by transforming such relationships into specific SCM strategic actions to obtain the optimal solution according to their preference.

A Semantic Web Service Architecture for Supply Chain Management

Abstract: In recent years, manufacturing supply chains are inclined to be worldwide business activity due to economic advantage of product development and service deployment in globalized world. This worldwide nature encompasses of complex business interactions and interchange of information between geographically distributed enterprises in different business sectors. Semantic web service can provide appropriate information exchange architectures for global supply chain business operations. This paper describes the main features of an ontology-based Semantic Web Service Architecture (SWSA), for which a prototype system was built for material procurement systems of a manufacturing supply chain. Description Logics (DL) are used to represent the terminological knowledge of SWSA in a structured way. The architecture uses a hybrid knowledge-based system which consists of Structured Case-Based Reasoning (S-CBR), Rule-Based Reasoning (RBR), and a service concept matching algorithm. SWSA includes: (1) a collection of web service descriptions in Ontology Web Language-Based Service (OWL-S), (2) service advertisement using business Complex Concept (CC), and (3) a concept similarity assessment algorithm. Finally, an example of this concept similarity assessment algorithm is presented to demonstrate its functionality.

Supply Chain Management in Readymade Garments Industry, Bangladesh

The export-oriented readymade garment (RMG) industry has some distinctive features, which differentiate it from other businesses. Wage, Supply chain, Time-frame, and Compliances are among the most important features of this business. Each of four features is interrelated and interdependent. Among the features, effective Supply Chain Management (SCM) is the core. Whatever the wage level or lead time (the period from order confirmation to shipment) without proper management of supply chain business is not viable and sustainable. Supply chain can categories into two phases – Macro level, part of global supply chain and Micro level, the supply chain system within the manufacturing unit. In supply chain system, it can be materials, it can be information, and even it can be a supply of business (continuation of business). One single and very simple issue like mismatching thread count or wrong button line, incorrect or delayed information can make the whole process jeopardies. Considering the importance, present study has been carried out on supply chain system in Bangladesh RMG industry. The study revealed the difficulties in supply chain system and also tried to set some guidelines to improve the system for the sustainable development of the sector.

Adrift in the Sea: The Impact of the Business Supply Chain Transparency on Trafficking and Slavery Act of 2015 on Forced Labor in the Thai Fishing Industry

Hundreds of thousands of men and boys are trafficked and enslaved on long-haul fishing boats in the waters off the coast of Thailand. These captives endure physical and mental abuse, inhumane working conditions, meager sustenance, and little sleep as they are forced to catch fish used in products such as cat food. This Note will focus on whether a proposed Act—the Business Supply Chain Transparency on Trafficking and Slavery Act of 2015 (BSCT)—would impact the issue of forced labor linked to the seafood industry in Thailand, and particularly the portion of the industry that supplies fish used in American brand cat foods. This Note conducts a case study focusing on Mars, Inc., to explore whether the BSCT would be effective. This Note concludes that legislation may not significantly impact this specific human rights abuse, but that an interrelated effort should be made to bring other interested parties into the solution-making process.

Role of Electronic Customer Relationship Management in Demand Chain Management

In 21st century, collaborative business supply chain environments are required to be proactive rather than reactive so that they can better deal with the uncertainty, growing competition, shorter cycle times, more demanding customers and pressure to cut costs. Demand chain management as a new business model requires investing in consumer insights and closer relationships in the supply chain to conduct predictive analysis of retail intelligent solutions. In this regard new kinds of methodologies are required to be discussed. However, at the execution level the limitations in terms of scalability, data integration and knowledge based decision support to providers or suppliers in terms of strategy building and in providing deductive inference capabilities are to be addressed. Therefore, it is required to describe how predictive analytics helps in constructing the knowledge base to conduct verification and validation in terms of semantic predictive analytic for the domain of demand chain management.

Investigating Relationships Between Supply Chain Capabilities, Competitive Advantage, and Business Performance

Growing in the competitive environment, organizations need to find ways to improve their performance even better by ensuring that all key drivers are being developed and utilized effectively. Thai and Vietnamese food industries are rapidly growing sectors. This study investigates the relationships between supply chain capabilities and competitive advantages towards business performance, and compares the above mentioned relationships between Thai and Vietnamese food industries. The data were gathered from conducted surveys with the food manufacturing companies in both countries, and tested by Structural Equation Modeling. The empirical results show that supply chain capabilities play an important role in business improvement in both countries. While, supply chain integration is considered as a critical factor for the Vietnamese food industry, human resource management is much regarded as important for the Thai food industry. These findings help companies in each country decide the best strategy for differentiating themselves in their business environment.

Resilience Assessment Based on Time-Dependent System Reliability Analysis

Significant efforts have been recently devoted to the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of resilience in engineering systems. Current resilience evaluation methods, however, have mainly focused on business supply chains and civil infrastructure, and need to be extended for application in engineering design. A new resilience metric is proposed in this paper for the design of mechanical systems to bridge this gap, by investigating the effects of recovery activity and system failure paths on system resilience. The defined resilience metric is connected to design through time-dependent system reliability analysis. This connection enables us to design a system for a specific resilience target in the design stage. Since computationally expensive computer simulations are usually used in design, a surrogate modeling method is developed to efficiently perform time-dependent system reliability analysis. Based on the time-dependent system reliability analysis, dominant system failure paths are enumerated and then the system resilience is estimated. The connection between the proposed resilience assessment method and design is explored through sensitivity analysis and component importance measure (CIM). Two numerical examples are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed resilience assessment method.

Compliance is supply chain's business too: Building a more secure supply chain

Healthcare organisations rely on medical suppliers to deliver products that are critical to safe and effective patient care. But while suppliers are instrumental to care delivery, they can also be a source of risk. This paper examines ways in which supplier relationships can threaten patient privacy and safety, as well as impact a provider's accreditation status and revenues. We also present statistics showing how these threats are growing as healthcare becomes more digital. From there, we describe how healthcare organisations can protect themselves, their staff and their patients by building compliance into their supply chain processes. Readers will gain knowledge about: Industry regulations that require healthcare organisations to manage their supplier relationships, and the penalties for non-compliance; how patient data has become more vulnerable to attacks as a growing number of healthcare organisations transition to interoperable electronic health records (EHRs), including recent statistics on healthcare industry data breaches; the significant risk that business associates can present to patient privacy and the responsibility of healthcare organisations to mitigate this risk; and seven steps that healthcare organisations can take to integrate compliance into their supply chain processes to protect patient privacy, accreditation status and revenues

Logistics activities in supply chain business process

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a set of logistics activities for each key supply chain business process of the Global Supply Chain Forum (GSCF) model and a conceptual framework to guide their implementation. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review on supply chain management (SCM) and logistics was conducted to integrate the existing knowledge of SCM, key business processes, and logistics; the latter is critical element for the success of SCM. A set of logistics activities and a conceptual framework are presented to guide their implementation in each of the key business process of the GSCF model. Three case studies were conducted in Brazilian food companies to verify the applicability of the proposed logistics activities, their characterization, and the conceptual framework. Findings – The logistics activities, the key business processes, and the steps to their implementation are integrated into a comprehensive framework. A total of 24 logistics activities and a conceptual framework to guide their implementation for each key business process of the GSCF model were proposed focussing on competitive advantage in a supply chain environment. Originality/value – The need for and the benefits derived from the involvement of the logistics in the key business processes of SCM have been reported in the literature, but the logistics activities in these processes and the way they were implemented have not yet been identified. According to Eisenhardt and Graebner (2007), building theory from case studies is an increasingly popular and relevant research strategy that involves using one or more cases to create theoretical constructs, propositions, and/or midrange theory from case-based empirical evidence. Therefore, the research gap to be filled with this manuscript is: “How does the involvement of the logistics area in the key business processes of the GSCF model occur?” The research question of the present study is: “Which activities are performed by the logistics area in the key business processes of the GSCF model and how to implement them?”. This study bridged the research gap and answered the research question by creating a theoretical construct through a conceptual framework to guide the implementation of the logistics activities for each key business process of the GSCF model. This paper aimed to extend the existing theory since the available literature has yet not addressed this research question at all.

Strategic values of technology-driven innovation in inventory management: a case study of Zara's RFID implementation

Inventory management has always been at the top of the agenda in the fast fashion business. Companies compete largely on strategic inventory management, which empowers quick market responsiveness. Much interest has recently been aroused by the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) in enabling product visibility along the supply chain. This paper presents a case study of Zara's RFID deployment, one of the largest-scale implementations in the industry, based on secondary data. It explores how Zara's RFID adoption aligns with its existing supply chain structure, business model and IT infrastructure. By drawing on the IT value hierarchy model (Urwiler and Frolick, 2008) in information systems literature, this paper creates a showcase for technology-enabled innovation that brings competitive differentiation in the context of inventory management in the fast fashion industry.

Organisational behaviour change towards waste reuse in the UK third sector

This paper explores, through the medium of literature review and a single in-depth empirical study conducted over a 1-year period, the ways in which a third sector organisation (TSO) is engaging in reuse behaviour change. The paper forms part of a larger scale PhD research project examining the ways in which corporate bodies can be helped to implement the UK government’s ambition to move up the so-called waste hierarchy from recycling to ‘reuse and preparing for reuse’ [1]. The paper starts by exploring the existing literature on current reuse practices, which both confirms that normative behaviour is concentrated on recycling and identifies TSOs as leading proactive stakeholders in pro moting reuse behaviour, noting that the literature is generally limited to household waste. Therefore, the empirical research sought to understand and identify whether, and if so how, normative behaviour towards reuse can be developed both within TSOs and potentially their business supply chain network. The paper reports on a single TSO (the Selby Trust), studied through a process of engaged action research and testing a behaviour change theoretical framework developed by Tavri et al. [2]. The action research tested the theory that by building a process known as ‘associative strength’ [3, 4], motivation for organisational behaviour change can be developed and, over the short term at least, maintained. The results point to the possibility of the case being replicable across other TSOs and throughout the business supply chain.

LITERATURE RATIFIED KNOWLEDGE BASED VIEW OF POULTRY SUPPLY CHAIN INTEGRATION CONCEPT

The evolution of relationships based on collaboration between business partners has become a fundamental subject of research in the area of supply chain management; including poultry supply chain integration. Study in this field has focused on a range of integration models. This study focuses on integration of systems, processes and strategy which is important for poultry supply chain business partners to recognize the benefits of closely associating supply to demand. One need to realize that these benefits are not easily achieved without constraints. A conclusion was made by proposing that ‘Knowledge Based View’ is a resource that can contribute value, towards knowledge generation, acquisition and application among members within and between organizations.

Application of Systems Simulation for Predicting and Optimising Energy Requirements for HDF Production

Even though simulation has been used so far in manufacturing facilities for modelling supply chain management, production management, and business processes, its applications in managing the energy consumption within manufacturing companies represent a new and innovative research domain. This prompted the research undertaken for the work present in this paper. The main focus of this research is to analyse production management in a manufacturing facility and correlate it with the energy consumption. The research initially concentrates on different simulation methodologies and their application in the current manufacturing domain. Literature relating to the correlation of energy consumption with production management has also been reviewed. This review identified very few previous instances where simulation tools were used to predict the energy consumption in a manufacturing facility. This research brings a novel approach to investigating the adaptability of industrial simulation processes and tools for modelling the energy consumption with respect to a variable production output. The end result of this investigation consists of a better understanding of the production system and the energy losses that were captured by the simulation model.

A Study on the Lifecycle of the Offshore Plant and the Simulation with DMU and Ergonomics

In this paper, the academic research on the value chain and the supply chain of offshore business are conducted for the investigation of the offshore business comprehensive configuration. Then, the assembly and ergonomic simulation was conducted for the purpose of advanced validation of offshore project.. With respect to the simulation analysis, the assembly simulation model(w.r.t. drill ship) and the ergonomic simulation model(w.r.t. FPSO) are constructed. Through the assembly simulation of drillship, the production processes could be validated in terms of availability. Also, the problem of topside design of FPSO was found by ergonomic simulation.

제조업 공급망 온톨로지 기반 적응형 ERP 모듈 시스템 프레임워크

Recently, an ERP (Enterprise resource Planning) system has been becoming an essential S/W tool for companies to manage their business processes and manufacturing resources. As the information exchange becomes more complex, not only corporate companies but also small- and mid- sized enterprises (SMEs) are required to build an ERP system. However, for small- and middle- sized companies, the adoption of ERP systems becomes challenging due to high cost and long installation time of the system. This paper presents a novel concept of an adaptive ERP system incorporating the ontology structure of the business supply chain information. The proposed ERP installation methodology is illustrated with an example of a door-trim manufacturing company in the automotive supply chain.

Operational Capability: The Missing Link between Supply Chain Practices and Performance

The relationship between supply chain practices and business performance has been widely investigated by many academics and practitioners; however, the relationship is not yet fully understood. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the relevance of several prominent theories in strategic management for explaining the mediating role of operational capability in the relationship between supply chain practices and business performance. The resource-based view of the firm and neo-institutional theory are reviewed for their applicability to relate supply chain practices and operational capability in explaining sustained business performance. Supply chain practices are insufficient to drive business performance. Firms need to be able simultaneously to increase efficiency through supply chain practices and to be innovative through operational capability. Specifically, operational capability is forwarded as a key firm-specific capability that can result in significant and long-term improvement in organisational sustainability. Operational capability can serve as a critical mediating factor that better transmits the ambitions of supply chain practices onto business performance. As such, this paper provides a conceptual support to urge further research to empirically evaluate the relationship between supply chain practices, operational capability and business performance.