A reflexive capability model for sustainable e-business environments in construction supply chains

Despite the increasing significance of e-business worldwide and construction market leaders developing innovative e-business applications, the widespread uptake in the Australian construction industry is lagging. There has been considerable literature related to e-business adoption focusing on drivers and barriers to adoption. However, there has not been an investigation that has applied fundamental supply chain theory concepts. In this paper a reflexive capability model for the individual firm in relation to e-business is developed which relies upon merging economic and social practices through an industrial organization economic theoretical lens and social science theories of communication. The reflexive
capability model proposed within this paper describes a framework for theorization of the different degrees of e-business adoption exhibited by individual firm’s and accounts for social-cultural, organisational-structural, communicative and economic (market and supply
chain) barriers, influences and pressures to adopt e-business.The model is proposed for the construction supply chain to enable awareness, engagement and realization of e-business technology and achieve long term construction e-business sustainability.

Decision making to support an integrated infrastructure supply chain industrial ecological approach within public private partnerships

Supply chains are complex adaptive systems for which final performance depends upon numerous interdependent decisions made by numerous firms which synthesise inputs from various resources systems.  The dynamic interdependent behaviour of social, economic, material and informational resource systems within eco-industrial settings that support the built environment life cycle supply chains can be studied at the supply chain level.  The impact of megaprojects is significant and holds promise to explore the impact of decisions on various systems as it combines project and system boundaries.  Megaoprojects considered as major events within systems can produce critical revolutionary impacts on the systems within which they are embedded.  The decisions that are made on megaprojects are central to risk management.  typically major infrastructure projects are procured through a form of public private partnership (PPP).  The core principle of PPP is value for money which refers to the best available outcome attempting to take account of all benefits, costs and risks over the whole life of the procurement.  In this paper the focus is on Australia where there has been considerable acitivity in the use of PPPs.  With recent national infrastucture packages proposed to stimulate the economy due to the global financial crisis, decision modelling on risks is a revelant and critical matter not only in practice but also in the research community.  PPPs encourage the whole-of-lifecycle approach in the procurement and management of public sector assets by transparently recognising the costs and risks associated with the whole life of the required service or facility, thus integrated whole of life supply chains can be considered.  By creating a single point of responsibility for an entire project from inception through operation, a strong incentive is created for thinking about the effects that a design or construction decision will have on the effectiveness and efficiency of managing and maintaining a facility during its operational life.  The decision to procure holistic supply chains becomes a much more viable commercial reality in the PPP environment than previously considered in the usual commercial construction spot transactional approach.  These types of decisions tend to be imprecise, approximate and complex requireing justification and reasoning logic rather than the classical 'truth' logic.  The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical decision framework which combines interdependency and multi-values logic for supply chain procurement modelling.

An industrial organisation economic supply chain approach for the construction industry : a review

Understanding industries in terms of the concepts of chains, clusters and networks is becoming increasingly important in economies around the world. Supply chain management for an individual organization is an
emerging field of research in the construction management discipline, but less attention has been devoted to investigating the nature of the construction supply chains and their industrial organizational economic environment. This selected review of construction and mainstream management supply chain literature is organized around four themes; distribution, production, strategic procurement management and industrial
organization economics, and highlights the need to develop an industrial organization economic supply chain framework for construction. The merging of the supply chain concept with the industrial organization model
as a methodology for understanding firm conduct and industry structure and performance is an important contribution to both construction supply chain and construction economic theory. Much of the industrial organization supply chain literature has tended to focus upon manufacturing industries, where typically firms are permanent organizations. This raises issues as to the differences between industries founded upon temporary compared with permanent organizations. There is potential for the development of an industrial organization methodology applicable to the project based industry. Ultimately industrial organization research seeks to have direct implications for industry performance and government policies.

Construction supply chain modeling : a research review and interdisciplinary research agenda

Supply chain management has emerged as a popular and useful concept in the construction industry and research community since the mid 1990s. Research in construction supply chain management draws from a broad range of disciplines, notably: (1) Industrial organization economics to better understand market structure and forces and their effect on firm and supply chain behavior and (2) Analytic modeling of supply chains to improve supply chain performance along metrics such as speed, cost, reliability, quality, etc. Both industrial organization and analytic modeling provide useful but ultimately incomplete perspectives and prescriptions for construction supply chain management. As such, this paper proposes development of an interdisciplinary research agenda that draws from both fields. Towards that agenda, a review of research is presented to introduce the main ideas, relevant literature, and theory and methods in each of the two areas. From these independent reviews, applications that could benefit from a combined perspective are identified and used as a basis for development of an interdisciplinary research agenda.

Construction supply chain management : a research review and interdisciplinary research agenda

Supply chain management has emerged as a popular and useful concept in the construction industry and research community since the mid 1990s. Research in construction supply chain management draws from a broad range of disciplines, notably: (1) industrial organization economics to better understand market structure and forces and their effect on firm and supply chain behavior and (2) Analytic modeling of supply chains to improve supply chain performance along metrics such as speed, cost, reliability, quality, etc. Both industrial organization and analytic modeling provide useful but ultimately incomplete perspectives and prescriptions for construction supply chain management. As such, this paper proposes development of an interdisciplinary research agenda that draws from both fields. Towards that agenda, a review of research is presented to introduce the main ideas, relevant literature, and theory and methods in each of the two areas. From these independent reviews, applications that could benefit from a combined perspective are identified and used as a basis for development of an interdisciplinary research agenda.

Construction supply chain modeling : a research review and interdisciplinary research agenda

Supply chain management has emerged as a popular and useful concept in the construction industry and research community since the mid 1990s. Research in construction supply chain management draws from a broad range of disciplines, notably: (1) industrial organization economics to better understand market structure and forces and their effect on firm and supply chain behavior and (2) Analytic modeling of supply chains to improve supply chain performance along metrics such as speed, cost, reliability, quality, etc. Both industrial organization and analytic modeling provide useful but
ultimately incomplete perspectives and prescriptions for construction supply chain management. As such, this paper proposes development of an interdisciplinary research agenda that draws from both fields. Towards that agenda, a review of research is presented to introduce the main ideas, relevant literature, and theory and methods in each of the two areas. From these independent reviews, applications that could benefit from a combined perspective are identified and used as a basis for development of an
interdisciplinary research agenda.

Construction supply chain economics

Introducing the new topic of supply chain economics, this comprehensive title combines theory and practice - including real-world case studies - to bring new methodology and models for mapping the construction sector.

Working hours in supply chain Chinese and Thai factories: evidence from the fair labor association's 'soccer project'

This article examines the determinants of working excessive hours, defined as working in excess of 60 hours per week or for more than six consecutive days, in Chinese and Thai supply chain factories. We use a matched employer-employee dataset collected from 15 Chinese and Thai footwear and sporting apparel supply chain factories, which supply international brands. Matched employer-employee data allow us to examine the effect of worker and firm characteristics on hours worked. We find that in addition to the demographic and human capital characteristics of workers, firm-level characteristics and worker awareness of how to refuse overtime are important in explaining variation in hours worked. © John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics 2011.

Identifying supply chain management and e-commerce opportunities at PaperCo Australia

Established supply chain management techniques such as Quick Response (QR) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) have proven the potential benefits of reorganizing an organization’s processes to take advantage of the characteristics of electronic information exchange. As the Internet and other proprietary networks expand, however, organizations have the opportunity to use this enabling infrastructure to exchange other, more varied types of information than traditional electronic data interchange (EDI) messages. This is especially true of companies with global operations and interests, which lead to a more diverse set of trading activities. This case presents the experiences of a large Australian paper products manufacturer in implementing an electronic document exchange strategy for supply chain management, including the drivers for change which spurred their actions, and describes the issues associated with trying to support existing and future requirements for document exchange across a wide variety of trading partners. The experiences of PaperCo will be relevant to organizations with diverse trading partners, especially small to medium enterprises (SMEs).

Construction supply chain economic policy implementation for sectoral change : moving beyond the rhetoric

The improvement of the performance of the construction industry through the improved performance of the supply chains that make up the various sectors is a difficult task and one that has had considerable international debate (London, 2005). The idea of using the supply chain concept as a normative model to improve firm behaviour and thus ultimately industry performance through the development of supply chain clusters or integrated supply chains has been discussed in many public sector policy documents and in the academic research community since the late 1990s (London, 2005). However it has been difficult to see any real examples where this concept has had any major impact – or where the improvements have been measured and/or monitored.

Towards the development of a construction supply chain transaction cost economic model for strategic infrastructure procurement evaluation

Australia has adopted public-private partnership (PPP) as a major strategy for procuring infrastructure for decades. However, even though considered to be a mature and sophisticated market, several major
failures have occurred resulting in increasing financial burdens on taxpayers. Failures have typically been traced back to economic evaluation and, in particular, value-for-money across the supply chain
in the original proposal. However, the literature review identified that there was no economic model that evaluated holistically the transaction costs of PPPs across the supply chain. In this paper, theories of transaction cost economics and construction supply chain economics are critiqued and analysed in order to develop a strategic infrastructure procurement evaluation model. The model will offer decision makers with an insight into project life cycle economic outcomes needed to successfully deliver PPPs.

Information sharing in supply chain systems

This chapter considers the importance of information-sharing techniques and strategies employed by industry sectors. Well-developed supply chain management often brings with it improved buyer-supplier communication processes, and we consider the impact of these not only from an intersector point of view, but also from a cross-sector viewpoint. The particular perspectives of the small business within a supply chain structure and of the supply chain customer are examined in detail. We conclude that information sharing is a critical component of business success both inside and outside the supply chain structure. However, while globally and at the large business level, both development and implementation of such technologies have mushroomed, smaller enterprises have tended to be left behind to cope as best they can with multiple pressures to conform.

Using soft systems methodology to address supply chain management problems

This paper reports an investigation of if, and how, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) might.be used to facilitate better management of industry supply chains. In two workshops involving supply chain managers from the Textile Clothing and Footwear (TCP) industry and industry facilitators, ways in which SSM techniques might supplement existing Supply Chain Management (SCM) workshop approaches have been explored. Specifically, the placement of SSM techniques within a workshop setting, reactions to the techniques, perceived reasons for using SSM, together with strengths and difficulties encountered, have been examined.