407,985 research outputs found
The importance of network goals for strategic chain management
No full textNowadays food products are increasingly produced in supply chain networks that involve numerous firms. Due to their pyramidal-hierarchical structure, such networks possess a focal company that coordinates the network. The managerial task of the focal company is to work out collective strategy that addresses cooperation and coordination problems at the firm, dyadic and network levels. These strategies must take into account that at each level specific goals must be achieved. Though the focal company is a strategy setting unit that sets network goals, other network actors may perceive these goals as firm-level goals of the focal company. Therefore, conflicts may occur in supply chain networks.Supply chain networks, focal company, network goals, Agribusiness,
Supply Chain Systems Architecture and Engineering Design: Green-field Supply Chain Integration
No full textThis paper developed a new theory for supply chain architecture, and engineering design that enables integration of the business and supply chain strategies. The architecture starts with individual supply chain participants and derives insights into the complex and abstract concept of green-field integration design. The paper presented a conceptual system for depicting the interactions between business and supply chain strategy engineering. The system examines the decisions made when engineering the business strategy, with regards to the supply chain design. The system derived with a new understanding of how strategies are integrated, and what are the implications for engineering successful strategies. The study revealed that sup-ply chain design is not considered in great detail before architecting the business strategies. Thus, companies consequentially experience supply chain problems that are likely to be detrimental to the growth potentials. The paper also derived with the findings that proactive and preemptive involvement of supply chain participants in the strategy engineering process, would lead to a more robust strategic design
An analysis on Supply Chain Performance Measurement
No full textIn today’s business processes it has been stated, that a successful supply chain (SC) is a key factor to increase the company’s productivity and profitability and consequently leads to a competitive advantage. This leads to the conclusion that supply chain performance (SCP) needs to be measured to achieve success. The importance of performance measurement for the success of companies has also been emphasized by Santos (2002, p. 1246). Performance measurement is necessary for implementing and realizing strategic goals and further informs the decision makers at the operational, tactical and strategic level (Guanasekaran and Kobu, 2007). In order to maintain the competitive advantage, SCs need to be monitored and underly continuous improvements. Because of these reasons performance measurement and metrics are needed to support the SCP improvement.
Through the increasing importance of SCP improvement, different metrics have been examined and developed in the scientific research. As a consequence, a great amount of different kind of metrics have been evolved, including insufficient metrics and a lack of appropriate metrics. Bagchi (1996) identifies 28 metrics, which are categorized in time, quality, cost and diagnostic measures. Gunasekaran et al. (2001) focuses on 18 metrics and links them to the SC activities: plan, source, make/assemble and (customer) delivery. Gunasekaran et al. (2005) suggests 28 performance metrics in new enterprises. Griffis et al. (2004, p. 98) summarize ten metrics, that have been identified as the “most commonly recommended logistics performance measures”. Beamon (1999, p. 281–284) provides exemplary metrics and links them to resources, output and flexibility. Hausman (2002, p. 67–69) classifies the metrics in service, inventory and speed. Furthermore, Gopal and Thakkar (2012, p. 521–522) provide a list, that shows how SCP can be measured in diverse ways.
The provided insight into the different metrics shows its broad extent and the differences in its approaches, which makes it difficult to get an overview and a clear fundamental classification. Hence, the research objective of the presented paper deals with the identification of the different categories or core aspects used in the literature. In order to extent the research the second research objective deals with the examination whether the identified literature of the SCP categories show a relation to the terms global supply chain management (SCM), SC complexity and SC risk
Supply Chain Complexity – A Bibliometric Analysis
No full textSupply chain (SC) structures become more dynamic and complex with an increasing globality. Complexity in SCs relates to three main dimensions. Spatial, horizontal, and vertical complexity are associated with higher uncertainty and missing transparency in Supply Chain Management (SCM). In modern SCM it is always assumed that the SCs are of global nature and reach across borders into different cultures (Vachon and Klassen, 2002, p. 219). This led to a competitive environment where company networks face each other instead of single firms (Kotzab et al., 2015, pp. 525–526). As there are many definitions of Supply Chain Complexity (SCC) that differ to some extent, the definition that underlines the basic approach of this paper is by. In SCM, SCC is defined as a combination of product, process, and network complexity (Bozarth et al., 2009, p. 80).
SCC management is a challenging task for SC managers all over the world. If a company is about to fail at SCC management, negative consequences will be generated. These consequences reach from inconsistent incoming material quality to higher transaction costs and a general inflexibility. It is impossible for SC managers to eliminate complexity which establishes an importance to create an understanding of drivers in SCC, determine, evaluate, and implement strategies to reduce complexity. Higher complexity leads to an overall worse performance in SCM, forming an incentive to manage SCC .
To review a research field, bibliometric analysis technique is applied. The analysis brings forth the main achievement in answering the following objectives:
a) Providing the intellectual foundation of SCC, i.e. the most impactful articles, authors, institutions, and journals as well as the academic output.
b) Providing the interdisciplinary character of SCC
P-Chain: Towards privacy-aware smart contract using SMPC
No full textSmart contract, as the representative application of blockchain, has recently fueled extensive research interests from both academia and industry. However, with its wide applications, the weaknesses of smart contract have been gradually revealed. The major barrier to the widespread adoption of smart contract involves concerns about on-chain privacy which refers to the details of input/output privacy. To address privacy concerns, we propose in this paper, P-Chain, a privacy-aware framework for smart contracts of permissioned blockchain to protect sensitive data of users based on Secure Multi-party Computation (SMPC). Unlike existing work that suffer several key drawbacks, including introducing a third party who could get the details of the deal, and high overhead for on-chain and off-chain communication, as well as lacking a privacy protection for output data, we enhance the privacy protection for smart contracts system by adding a new secure multi-party computation layer in P-Chain. Through secure multi-party computing, sensitive inputs of smart contracts are divided into multiple sub-inputs and sent to computing participants for operation respectively, which ensures that each participant can only access part of the user’s information. A stochastic strategy based o
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Corporate responsibility, supply chain partnership and performance: An empirical examination
No full textThis is the post-print version of the final paper published in International Journal of Production Economics. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2012 Elsevier B.V.Unlike corporate and business levels, there is little research examining corporate responsibility (CR) at the functional level of the firm including supply chain strategy. The results of a firm-level survey show that CR internal awareness, and monitoring CR performance are positively related to the supply chain partnership approach, however sharing CR best practices is negatively associated. Furthermore, the impact of CR on firm performance is mediated by the functional behaviour of supply chain partnership formation. Our study provides support for including CR awareness building and monitoring in the development of partnerships but cautions against imposing CR best practices on suppliers
Systemic Risk and the Ripple Effect in the Supply Chain
No full textSupply chains are highly complex systems, and disruptions may ripple through these systems in unexpected ways, but they may also start in unexpected ways. We investigate the causes of ripple effect through the lens of systemic risk. We derive supply chain systemic risk from the finance discipline where sources of risk are found in systemic risk-taking, contagion, and amplification mechanisms. In a supply chain context, we identify three dimensions that influence systemic risk, the nature of a disruption, the structure, and dependency of the supply chain, and the decision-making. Within these three dimensions, there are several factors including correlation of risk, compounding effects, cyclical linkages, counterparty risk, herding behavior, and misaligned incentives. These factors are often invisible to decision makers, and they may operate in tandem to exacerbate ripple effect. We highlight these systemic risks, and we encourage further research to understand their nature and to mitigate their effect.This accepted book chapter is published as Scheibe K.P., Blackhurst J. (2019) Systemic Risk and the Ripple Effect in the Supply Chain. In: Ivanov D., Dolgui A., Sokolov B. (eds) Handbook of Ripple Effects in the Supply Chain. International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, vol 276. Springer, Cham. Posted with permission. </p
Dairy supply chain restructuring and its impact on farmers' revenues in Poland
No full textSupply chain restructuring and its impact on farmers’ situation have become the subject of vast interest among agricultural economists. However, there have been relatively few studies trying to quantitatively asses this issue. This paper analyses the impact of supply chain modernisation on dairy farmers in Poland. It is shown that joining the modern marketing channel positively affects farmers’ revenues. The decision to enter the modern channel is crucially dependent on access to funds and facilitated by having larger cow herds.Supply chain, restructuring, dairy sector, Poland, Agribusiness, Livestock Production/Industries,
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Knowledge acquisition in supply chain partnerships: the role of power
No full textKnowledge is recognised as an important source of competitive advantage and hence there has been increasing academic and practitioner interest in understanding and isolating the factors that contribute to effective knowledge transfer between supply chain actors. The literature identifies power as a salient contributor to the effective operation of a supply chain partnership. However, there is a paucity of empirical research examining how power among actors influences knowledge acquisition and in turn the performance of supply chain partners. The aim of this research is to address this gap by examining the relationship between power, knowledge acquisition and supply chain performance among the supply chain partners of a focal Chinese steel manufacturer. A structured survey was used to collect the necessary data. Two conceptually independent variables – ‘availability of alternatives’ and ‘restraint in the use of power’ – were used to assess actual and realised power, respectively. Controlling for contingencies, we found that the flow of knowledge increased when supply chain actors had limited alternatives and when the more powerful actor exercised restraint in the use of power. Moreover, we found a positive relationship between knowledge acquisition and supply chain performance. This paper enriches the literature by empirically extending our understanding of how power affects knowledge acquisition and performance
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An investigation into Indian apparel and textile supply chain networks
No full textThe activities of the Indian clothing industry supplying Western markets have been investigated, with particular reference to identifying where improvements could be made to supply chain management. Focus group discussions, case studies and questionnaire analysis established that long lead-times in pre-production areas were of great concern. However Indian apparel manufacturers were found to be more cost conscious and rather less conscious about the value of time in pre-production areas. It was found that pre-production activities constituted 73% of total manufacturing lead time and have high positive correlation (0.96) with total manufacturing lead time. Preproduction activities in India mainly consist of prototype making and pre-production sample development; of which approval processes were found to have a high correlation (0.63) with pre-production. A significant (more than 50%) time of all activities consist of waiting time, which has positive influence on total lead time (0.86)
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