e-Business in supply chain management

E-business is concerned with the use of the Internet to link companies with their suppliers, customers and other trading partners. As a business concept, it has evolved significantly since its introduction in the 1990’s in parallel with the rapid rate of development of information technology (IT) during this period. Supply chain management (SCM) is fundamentally concerned with integration of activities both with and between organisations. IT plays a crucial role in SCM as a key enabler of supply chain integration (SCI). This chapter sets out the role of e-business concepts in the context of the supply chain challenges faced by firms. It specifically explores the role of e-procurement as an example of how e-business concepts have been applied to one key SCM activity, namely purchasing and procurement. In this context, the chapter examines the nature and evolution of e-marketplaces and goes on to identify key adoption drivers and benefits based on recent research. This research identifies key adoption drivers and benefits but also recognises that there are many barriers that ongoing research needs to address if the potential of e-business is to be fulfilled.

Supply chain innovation for competing in highly competitive markets:challenges and solutions

Rapid changes in technological development are forcing businesses to continuously innovate to improve their competitiveness, which is particularly evident in logistics and supply chain management (SCM), where innovation impacts both the strategic and operational levels. Supply Chain Innovation for Competing in Highly Dynamic Markets: Challenges and Solutions investigates the role of innovation in the management of supply chains of today. This book focuses on supply chain integration from both strategic and operational perspectives and the impact of information technology-related innovation in supply chain and logistics service industries. It also analyzes how environmental innovation affects logistical decisions throughout the supply chain and the strategies employed in managing logistics-related environmental impacts. Finally, the book explores theoretical and practical implications of innovation in the management of supply systems.

Towards a unified definition of supply chain management:the four fundamentals

A wide range of definitions of supply chain management (SCM) have been developed over the last three decades. The philosophy of SCM is based firmly on a recognition that it is only by working in a more integrated manner that competitive advantage can be maximised. However, for this to become a reality the development of common definitions and understandings between supply chain partners is a critical success factor. The corollary of this is that a lack of definitional consistency and a common understanding is an inhibitor to the successful adoption of SCM thinking in practice. This paper reviews a number of definitions of SCM, as well as discussions and analyses of such definitions. This leads to the central point posited in the paper – the need for a ‘unified definition’. Such a definitional construct, labelled the Four Fundamentals of SCM, is proposed with the core of the paper providing a narrative description of this construct based on a wide range of literature.

An Investigation into Outsourcing Practice in Ireland:A New Direction in Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Companies are increasingly focusing on the development of core competencies as an integral part of their overall strategy development and implementation. The corollary of this is that functions regarded as being non-core are being outsourced. This paper investigates the case for and against outsourcing and in addition what is happening in Ireland regards outsourcing. Furthermore to analysis of current literature in the field, an Irish-wide postal and e-mail survey, as well as three case studies revealed many interesting facts. The key findings of the work are manufacturing outsourcing is now the most popular function to be outsourced for both small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and large enterprises. Large enterprises (LEs) do not prepare or examine hidden costs more than SMEs, nor do they differ much in relation to the use of consultants. Furthermore, the importance of time spent on preparing or producing contract, and the impact the contract can have on the supplier-buyer relation do not differ significantly. It was found that most companies outsourced within Ireland, which led to further investigation in that area. In relation to logistics outsourcing specifically, this has become very important in the supply chain over the last 20 years as an activity that was traditionally handled by firms as a support function. At that time logistics activities such as warehousing, distribution, transportation and inventory management were given low priority compared with other business functions within the organisation. However, since the customer has become more demanding, the logistics function has now become a source of competitive advantage and there has been a growing emphasis on providing good customer service.

Putting supply chain learning theory into practice:lessons from an Irish case

The logistics service market is currently going through a fundamental transition. The development of closer relationships with customers and the continuous adaptation of products and services, represent potentially successful approaches to the development of improved competitive capability. To this end knowledge resources and learning processes increasingly represent key elements within the evolving framework of the 3PL business. This paper describes the case of NITL’s Foundation Certificate Programme (FCP) learning programme with specific reference to its use in addressing some of current shortcomings related to supply chain knowledge and skills in the Irish third party logistics (3PL) industry. The FCP rationale is based on the need to move from traditional approaches of supply chain organisation where the various links in the chain were measured and managed in isolation from each other and thus tended to operate at cross purposes, towards more integrated approaches.

The implementation of supply chain management theory in practice:an empirical investigation

Purpose: The purpose of the research described in this paper is to disentangle the rhetoric from the reality in relation to supply chain management (SCM) adoption in practice. There is significant evidence of a divergence between theory and practice in the field of SCM. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a review of extant theory, the authors posit a new definitional construct for SCM – the Four Fundamentals – and investigated four research questions (RQs) that emerged from the theoretical review. The empirical work comprised three main phases: focussed interviews, focus groups and a questionnaire survey. Each phase used the authors’ definitional construct as its basis. While the context of the paper’s empirical work is Ireland, the insights and results are generalisable to other geographical contexts. Findings: The data collected during the various stages of the empirical research supported the essence of the definitional construct and allowed it to be further developed and refined. In addition, the findings suggest that, while levels of SCM understanding are generally quite high, there is room for improvement in relation to how this understanding is translated into practice. Research limitations/implications: Expansion of the research design to incorporate case studies, grounded theory and action research has the potential to generate new SCM theory that builds on the Four Fundamentals construct, thus facilitating a deeper and richer understanding of SCM phenomena. The use of longitudinal studies would enable a barometer of progress to be developed over time. Practical implications: The authors’ definitional construct supports improvement in the cohesion of SCM practices, thereby promoting the effective implementation of supply chain strategies. A number of critical success factors and/or barriers to implementation of SCM theory in practice are identified, as are a number of practical measures that could be implemented at policy/supply chain/firm level to improve the level of effective SCM adoption. Originality/value: The authors’ robust definitional construct supports a more cohesive approach to the development of a unified theory of SCM. In addition to a profile of SCM understanding and adoption by firms in Ireland, the related critical success factors and/or inhibitors to success, as well as possible interventions, are identified.

Supply chain management resources, capabilities and execution

This paper identifies inter- and intra-organisational management resources that determine the level of execution of inter-firm alliance supply chain management (SCM). By drawing on network and resource-based view theories, a conceptual model proposes the effects of SCM resources and capabilities as influencing factors on SCM execution. The model was tested using survey data from studies conducted in two European supply chain environments. Variance-based structural equation modelling confirmed the hypothesised hierarchical order of three proposed antecedents: internal SCM resources affect joint SCM resources, which in turn influence collaborative SCM-related processes and finally SCM execution. An importance-performance analysis for both settings shows that providing and investing in internal SCM resources should be a priority when aiming to increase SCM execution. The theoretical contribution of this paper lies in confirming that the improvement of SCM execution follows a clear pathway featuring internal supply chain resources as one of the main drivers. The practical implications of this research include the development of a prioritisation list of measures that elevate SCM execution in the two country settings. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.

Ellátási lánc kapcsolatok modellezése = Modeling of supply chain relationships

A dolgozatban az ellátási láncokban meglévő diadikus kapcsolatok minőségét állítjuk a vizsgálatok középpontjába. Az irodalomban számtalan megközelítés ismert az ellátási lánc kapcsolatok fejlődésének leírására. Ezen fejlődési elméletek inkább elméleti szinten írják le a diadikus kapcsolatok változását, annak empirikus tesztelhetőségét nem vizsgálják. Dolgozatunkban kísérletet teszünk az ellátási lánc kapcsolatok fejlődésének empirikus vizsgálatára. Arra próbálunk választ találni, hogy az életciklus hipotézis az üzleti kapcsolatok időbeli fejlődésére alkalmazható-e. = Our paper combines two approaches using data of an internet based questionnaire and applying quantitative analysis it tests the hypothesis business relationship development in time can be described with the concept of life cycle. The concept of life cycle is widely used in business research. Among others the diffusion of innovation is described using this concept, or the concept of product life cycle just to name a few. All of these researches analyze the life cycle along a specific variable (for example the volume of sales or revenue in case of the product life cycle) which (except the last stage of the cycle, the decline) has a cumulative character resulting in the widely known specific shape of a life cycle. Consequently testing a life cycle hypothesis inevitably means the acceptance of some type cumulativity in the development.

Robust scenario formulations for strategic supply chain optimization under uncertainty

Strategic supply chain optimization (SCO) problems are often modelled as a two-stage optimization problem, in which the first-stage variables represent decisions on the development of the supply chain and the second-stage variables represent decisions on the operations of the supply chain. When uncertainty is explicitly considered, the problem becomes an intractable infinite-dimensional optimization problem, which is usually solved approximately via a scenario or a robust approach. This paper proposes a novel synergy of the scenario and robust approaches for strategic SCO under uncertainty. Two formulations are developed, namely, naïve robust scenario formulation and affinely adjustable robust scenario formulation. It is shown that both formulations can be reformulated into tractable deterministic optimization problems if the uncertainty is bounded with the infinity-norm, and the uncertain equality constraints can be reformulated into deterministic constraints without assumption of the uncertainty region. Case studies of a classical farm planning problem and an energy and bioproduct SCO problem demonstrate the advantages of the proposed formulations over the classical scenario formulation. The proposed formulations not only can generate solutions with guaranteed feasibility or indicate infeasibility of a problem, but also can achieve optimal expected economic performance with smaller numbers of scenarios.

Point-and-shoot: rapid quantitative detection methods for on-site food fraud analysis – moving out of the laboratory and into the food supply chain

Major food adulteration and contamination events occur with alarming regularity and are known to be episodic, with the question being not if but when another large-scale food safety/integrity incident will occur. Indeed, the challenges of maintaining food security are now internationally recognised. The ever increasing scale and complexity of food supply networks can lead to them becoming significantly more vulnerable to fraud and contamination, and potentially dysfunctional. This can make the task of deciding which analytical methods are more suitable to collect and analyse (bio)chemical data within complex food supply chains, at targeted points of vulnerability, that much more challenging. It is evident that those working within and associated with the food industry are seeking rapid, user-friendly methods to detect food fraud and contamination, and rapid/high-throughput screening methods for the analysis of food in general. In addition to being robust and reproducible, these methods should be portable and ideally handheld and/or remote sensor devices, that can be taken to or be positioned on/at-line at points of vulnerability along complex food supply networks and require a minimum amount of background training to acquire information rich data rapidly (ergo point-and-shoot). Here we briefly discuss a range of spectrometry and spectroscopy based approaches, many of which are commercially available, as well as other methods currently under development. We discuss a future perspective of how this range of detection methods in the growing sensor portfolio, along with developments in computational and information sciences such as predictive computing and the Internet of Things, will together form systems- and technology-based approaches that significantly reduce the areas of vulnerability to food crime within food supply chains. As food fraud is a problem of systems and therefore requires systems level solutions and thinking.

From the farm to the fork: fungal occupational exposure in the swine meat supply chain

Feed production, swine and slaughterhouses were already reported as occupational environments with high fungal contamination. This condition can ultimately lead to the development of several health conditions. This study aimed to characterize the occupational exposure to fungal burden in three different settings: swine feed unit, swine units and slaughterhouse.