supply chain collaboration

Portfolio approaches are abundant in supply chain management. However, while environmental management explains collaborative approaches as a function of stakeholder power (de Bakker and Nijhof, 2002; Friedman and Miles, 2004; Mitchell et al., 1997), supply chain collaboration is based on trust and commitment instead of power, control or dependence (Skjøtt-Larsen et al., 2003; van Donk and van der Vaart, 2005). Skjøtt-Larsen et al. (2003) even propose a portfolio for supply chain collaboration based on power versus trust-based relationships. Different approaches towards supply chain collaboration can be distinguished according to the depth and scope of collaboration. Short-term transactional relations in the supply chain are described as being based on power structures (van Donk and van der Vaart, 2005), encompass only few functionalities and a low amount and frequency of transactions, and focus on operational exchanges only (Skjøtt-Larsen et al., 2003). These transactional relations are often criticised for neglecting quality considerations (Lee- Mortimer, 1993) and pursuing sole cost minimising aims (Kaufman et al., 2000; Kumar and van Dissel, 1996). Moving towards more integrative and resource- dependent relations in a power-based environment will lead to vertical integration, thus an increased level of control over these operations (Kaufman et al., 2000), but to lower flexibility in the supply chain (cf. Skjøtt-Larsen et al., 2003). Supply chain collaboration as opposed to vertical integration is based on trust (Fynes et al., 2005; Kumar and van Dissel, 1996), and long-term relations (Boddy et al., 2000; van Donk and van der Vaart, 2005). Moving towards more integrative relations in a trust-based environment is argued to maintain the flexibility and responsiveness of the supply chain (Fisher et al., 1997).

RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS Relationship between Supply Chain Collaboration and Supply Chain Performance The success of today’s manufacturing hinges on inter- and intra-firm collaboration. SC partners who had higher levels of collaboration practices were able to achieve better operational performance (Fawcett et al., 2008; Soosay et al., 2008) and innovation activities (Kühne et al., 2013; Wiengarten et al., 2013). The financial successes of Japanese manufacturers are hinged on innovation and collaboration (Nakano, 2009). Successful collaboration has been equated with the ability and readiness of managers to create trust and build relationships among partners (Panayides and Lun, 2009). SCC has a positive influence on SCP (Liao et al., 2010). However, collaboration has no significant influence on innovation performance (Ahuja, 2000). Therefore, in line with the argument above and the reasons for collaboration, this study argues that SCC could have a significant effect on the SCP of Nigerian manufacturing companies. Therefore, hypothesis 1 was postulated:

In fluctuating economic conditions such as global recession, supply chains operate under changing conditions of uncertainty. The impact of this uncertainty and associated risk might be mitigated by collaboration. This paper proposes a model of supply chain collaboration based on information exchange and decision coordination at both the strategic and tactical levels. However, a collaborative supply chain can be exposed to associated risks such as the failure of individual actors. Governance regimes can facilitate collaboration at the strategic and tactical level and mitigate valid apprehensions about collaboration that the actors may have. Governance can be considered as a critical factor in achieving collaboration. The paper argues for explicit rules to regulate information exchange and decision coordination at the strategic and tactical level. An illustrative case study of an automotive supplier from the electronics industry is used to explain the model..

This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Thesis/Dissertation Collections at RIT Scholar Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of RIT Scholar Works. For more information, please contact ritscholarworks@rit.edu. Recommended Citation Govindasamy, Bharani, "A supply chain collaboration solution using XQuery" (2006). Thesis. Rochester Institute of Technology.

Above all, all relevant concepts have been involved in building the conceptual framework and in further guiding the research. 2.10 Summary Collaboration has been studied by researchers as a hot topic. How to maintain relationships among suppliers and buyers to obtain sustained and maximum benefits is the concern of every participant in the supply chain or network. This chapter not only provided a review of supply chain collaboration from the dyadic perspective and shifting to a triadic perspective, it also tried to re-identify several key concepts that are crucial to future research work. In the context of the review, this study is trying to develop a practical framework to investigate the existing triads and their impact on the supply chain. The following questions are expected to be addressed: How do dyads come together into triads in supply chain collaboration? What are the patterns of supply chain collaboration from a triadic view? And how does triadic collaboration impact on supply chain performance?

producers. A guide questionnaire was prepared. It had two main parts: supply chain uncertainty and supply chain collaboration. This study will show that the level of collaboration with the supply chain partners is at medium levels, according to the collaboration index. A successful collaboration requires information sharing, trust, commitment and work group. The Albanian culture does not have all these elements. This explains the medium level of supply chain collaboration. Although interest in supply chain collaboration is increasing, no such research has been conducted in Albania. The results of this research will be of high importance not only for the managers of the beer companies but also for the managers in other industries.

In the past few decades several supply chain management initiatives such as Vendor Managed Inventory, Continuous Replenishment and Collaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) have been proposed in literature to improve the performance of supply chains. But, identifying the benefits of collaboration is still a big challenge for many supply chains. Confusion around the optimum number of partners, investment in collaboration and duration of partnership are some of the barriers of healthy collaborative arrangements. To evolve competitive supply chain collaboration (SCC), all SC processes need to be assessed from time to time for evaluating the performance. In a growing field, performance measurement is highly indispensable in order to make continuous improvement; in a new field, it is equally important to check the performance to test conduciveness of SCC. In this research, collaborative performance measurement will act as a testing tool to identify conducive environment to collaborate, by the way of pinpointing areas requiring improvements before initializing collaboration. We use actual industrial data and simulation to help managerial decision-making on the number of collaborating partners, the level of investments and the involvement in supply chain processes. This approach will help the supply chains to obtain maximum benefit of collaborative relationships. The use of simulation for understanding the performance of SCC is relatively a new approach and this can be used by companies that are interested in collaboration without having to invest a huge sum of money in establishing the actual collaboration.

2016) in network. The collaboration is not always effective in operation, due to it may takes more time in information processing ( Ateş, Ende and Ianniello, 2015). 5. Conclusion This research explores the drivers and configuration patterns of upstream supply chain in a triadic view, which provide a practical method to further investigate triadic collaborations in downstream supply chain; that enrich the relevant research in supply chain collaboration with empirical evidence in industry field. The results in a way provide pharmaceutical SMEs with practical management strategies to enhance their collaboration and improve their supply chain performance.

To achieve the above plan, various strategies were developed to facilitate collaborations between Malaysian firm including the SME with government link companies and multi-national companies in operating in Malaysia and overseas. The plan also outlined the strategy to encourage industrial growth and raising the level of competitiveness and productivity of the manufacturing and service sectors. This is to position Malaysia as a major manufacturing hub and service provider in the global supply chain. As mentioned earlier the Malaysian 3 rd Industrial Master Plan intended to improve the country’s global competitiveness by assisting and facilitating Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SME) toward economic integration at regional and global level. This is to be achieved by encourages Malaysian companies to be involved in supply chain collaboration in their business operations .

2.1 Adaptive process concept toward enterprise information technology assimilation The exploitation of enterprise information technology in supply chain collaboration involves using enterprise technology to facilitate routine business practices, such as order receiving, order tracking, new accounts establishment, existing account maintenance, invoicing, material transaction, etc. These activities refine existing business patterns with benefits occurring over a short to immediate time period [7]. With enterprise technology, users are able to improve operational efficiency through measures such as increasing standardization or tightening process control. Furthermore, the exploitation approach tends to result in operational benefits such as lead time reduction and inventory accuracy [5]. Firms oriented to exploitation, use enterprise information technology for information sharing, channel collaboration, and integrated forecasting and inventory replenishment. For example, Cisco outsources more than 50% of its production capacity. Using enterprise information technology, it effectively process orders online which results in enhanced ability to rapidly respond to the demand changes in the supply chain [5].

Abstract-Model of Supply chain collaboration model that affects on competitive advantage via collaboration advantage and reduction of supply chain disruption: a case study in Automotive Parts Manufacturing Industry in Thailand. The aims of this study were to investigate the mediating effects of collaboration advantage and reduce supply chain disruption on the relationship between Supply chain collaboration and competitiveness. Data were obtained from 282 manager in production division of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in automotive parts manufacturing industry in Thailand. Structural equation model (SEM) technique was employed for data analysis. The findings indicated that supply chain collaboration had significant positive effect on collaboration advantage and competitive advantage. Furthermore, collaboration advantage and reduce supply chain disruption had significant positive impact on competitiveness. On the other hand, supply chain collaboration had significant negative effect on reduce supply chain disruption. This is quite a surprising result. The discovery of the relationship between supply chain collaboration and competitive advantage in this field benefits for not only academic sector but also public and private sectors. The study suggests that organizations enable to improve their collaboration advantage, including process efficiency, offering flexibility and innovation, by developing either supply chain collaboration practices. This, in turn, enhances organizational performance in high competitive advantage.

Collaboration among participating supply chain members helps to explore better ideas for superior performance and to compare practices in other business supply chains. The comparison will help to implement the necessary improvements to identify high-standard buyer missions and operations and to attain or surmount these measures. Firms that collaborate with purposes such as sales, on-time delivery, and inventory reduction will experience better performance results (Simatupang and Sridharan, 2008). The strong collaboration promotes awareness and the assessment of strong functional orientations, thereby supporting their development as a necessary ingredient for essential competencies. The ability to collaborate reduces inefficient decisions while bridging downstream and upstream suppliers to client-related work. The work of Panahifar et al., (2018) support the earlier studies related to the positive influence of effective collaborations in the enhanced association between the member of chain for this reason company performance. Supply chain collaboration by way of information sharing like applying Collaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment and Vendor Managed Inventory has given advantages to business associates from various features including enhancement of forecasting precision, improved consumer service quality, and solid relationship among partners. Successful collaboration within supply chain members has positive impacts on a company's sales increase, customer contentment, and general operational performance. Therefore, we state the following hypothesis:

Stage III: Strategic collaboration: accomplish structural savings as a result of restructuring of the shared logistic structure. Supply chain collaboration provides the efficient exchange of planning information among trading partners to ensure streamlined and optimized management of the flow of parts and materials into the plant. Types of information exchanged include material plans, inventory and capacity availability, performance scorecards, and key performance indicators. The real source of sustainable competitive advantage will rather be the ability to innovate on a continual basis. The main benefits of supply chain collaboration are summarized in two items of lowered inventory costs and increased customer responsiveness. Collaborative product introduction requires extremely strong relationships with suppliers to successfully execute on product design, sourcing, supplier selection, and production ramp up. To collaborate on demand planning successfully, business partners need to share and modify each other’s demand plans and forecast electronically. Once demand plans and forecasts are in place, replenishment plans are designed to assume adequate product availability would be jointly developed.

those whose presence in the collaborative solution is essential –namely, the factory and the retailer– according to the scenario that has been previously defined. 4. Conclusions Supply chain collaboration can be interpreted as two or more firms working together to achieve higher profits than those that can be obtained by acting alone (Simatupang & Sridharan, 2002). Within the collaborative scheme aimed at optimizing the system in its entirety, information sharing and decision synchronization must be understood as enablers, while the competitive advantages are built on process integration.

A different type of collaboration is vertical cooperation in supply chains. Most of the literature up-to-date studies a supplier-retailer with non-cooperative game theory. For a proper analysis of all cooperation possibilities, the application of cooperative game theory is necessary. This is a rather new area of research with a limited number of papers. Most of these use bargaining games to study negotiations and profit allocation between the supplier and the retailer. As far as we are aware, only Guardiola et al., (2007) use TU-games to study collaboration in a distribution chain with a single supplier and multiple retailers. This new area of research has lots to explore yet. TU-games can be used to analyse stability of collaboration within all sorts of supplier-retailer relationships. Further, aspects like nonzero leadtime, stochastic demand, and incomplete availability of information on costs should be included. Other interesting research includes situations in which the retailers provided by the supplier are competitors on the same market, or situations of collaboration within a supply chain that involves three or more levels, like a manufacturer, supplier and a retailer.

Eff ectively dealing with Supply Chain Complexity may well prove to be one of the most important challenges facing Discrete Manufacturing companies over the coming years. The industry is increasingly becoming a complex and global industry where discrete manufacturers can no longer operate the same way they have in the past and remain successful. New products are incredibly complex, engineering is now a globally distributed and collaborative process, manufacturers as well as suppliers are also globally distributed, and consumer growth is almost entirely located in emerging economies. For discrete manufacturers to succeed in this environment, it is essential they orchestrate an integrated network of suppliers and customers. A company that is in control of a fl exible and adaptable supply chain is better positioned to react when the market changes and deliver innovative, high quality products to customers.

As depicted in Figure 3, the chain members conduct external benchmarking to obtain a benchmarking database collected from surveying customers, competitors, and world-class practices. Surveying customer wants and needs can provide up-to-date product data, quality expectations, competitive comparisons, insight into changing preferences, and immediate feedback about service and pattern of use. The chain members need this customer information at all levels from the executive suite to the retail floor because this information can be used to deduce target levels that need to be met by the chain members (Garvin, 1993). More ambitious targets can be set from benchmarking data that exist in competitor supply chains. These data can be surveyed through the use of consultants. Moreover, the chain members can obtain data about competition requirements from respective trade associations. The ultimate performance target is based on best-in-class benchmarks. However, most of these data are available only inside private companies and access can be very costly. Chain members could employ third-party services to conduct a world-class survey as well as to provide a critical analysis of their current supply chain performance. The conceptual framework for collaborative benchmarking helps the chain members to choose the performance metrics which are most appropriate to the context of their collaborative arrangements. For example, the exception cycle promotes metrics that span cross-functional supply chain operations such as IDDs and TDDs (Goldratt et al., 2000). Once participating members agree on appropriate performance metrics, they will be able to compare the current level of their collaborative performance with benchmarking data in order to identify any performance gaps at the three managerial levels. First, the review cycle adopts outcomes metrics that align with the mutual strategic objectives. In this way, the chain members are able to create integrated metrics rather than maintain functional-cost-oriented metrics that are often achieved at the expense of another member (Simatupang and Sridharan, 2002a). Second, the improvement cycle helps to focus on learning capability, such as responsiveness and flexibility, required to improve performance. Third, the exception cycle can be used to improve the execution level by adopting new

We believe difficulties lie with: 1) Identification of the weak spots in current supply chain; and 2) Finding the balance between global chain effectiveness versus local efficiencies. Cutting costs locally always looks tempting, but TOC warns against traditional cost accounting approaches that view operating expenses as the dominant measurement. This gives the impression that an organization and its supply chains are composed of independent variables. Since, operating expenses are found everywhere, almost everything is considered as important. TOC suggests the opposite: only a few issues deserve top priority in bringing chain performance to the next sustainable level. The key to accomplishing the collaborative chain is to take a strategic perspective across the entire chain rather than focus at the individual entity level. This is supported by further evidence that we are moving from a world where individual entities stand and compete alone in their respective markets, to a world where supply chains will be competing against each other. The global airline industry and the automotive industry are prime examples of this phenomenon. A balance between chain requirements and individual players has to be sought and found. But finding this kind of compromise can be risky, and works best where there is a good cultural “fit”

Our experience with the Dutch flower export industry is a good example of such supply chain structure constraint blocking any collaboration. At the traditional large flower exporter the notion of business dynamics is profoundly presented throughout the business operations. Each of these companies is located right next to the auction building, their main supply source. There is intensive cooperation between the sales and purchase units. And internal logistics is completely designed to provide quick response. The statistics show that more 70% of daily total sales are so-called last- minute sales. These last-minute customers are upon the very last moment of purchase browsing for the best deal. Although collaboration is possible with this group of highly dynamic buyers, it would drastically alter the business structure. Therefore, we suggest given this structure, the collaborative value is relatively small.

In downstream collaboration, the focal company as the supplier to provide pharmaceutical products are connected to relevant customers in different levels. Depend on the roles played by third party in network [10, 11], the attentions given to ties of CC-3P and 3P-Customer are distinct. If the business connection is in a strategic perspective, where the performance of 3P could directly impact on not only customer satisfaction but also aspects of marketing, the CC-3P collaborations tend to be maintained by the focal company in a high level; and due to the 3P’s strategic position, the 3P-Customer relationship is able to be built up in a high level also, sometimes even can be supported by the focal company. If the involvement of 3P is only to give assistance of distribution or logistics in operational level only, the level of CC-3P collaboration is usually depends on the trust for 3P of the focal company and the willingness to collaborate of 3P to the focal company; the 3P-Customer collaboration is less considered, which is to complete certain task only in a basic business connection.