Material requirement planning and the supply chain at Alenia Aircraft

This case study analyses how the adoption of material requirement planning (MRP) at Alenia Aircraft has brought about organizational and logistic changes in the firm's supply chain. The impact of the MRP system on the supply chain is investigated by analysing the relationship between Alenia Aircraft and the firm Alfa, one of its more significant subcontractors. The case study highlights the current trends within Alenia Aircraft's supply chain. A tiering of the subcontracting firms is taking place through a selection process, leading some traditional subcontractors to become main subcontractors while only some of them become main verticalized subcontractors. In this selection and tiering process of the supply chain, a crucial role is played by the subcontractors' managerial, organizational and logistic capabilities.     

Managerial Commitment to Sustainable Supply Chain Management Projects

Most companies are under pressure to improve the environmental sustainability of their supply chains. However, there is considerable variance in companies' ability to successfully deploy environmental management projects. One important factor, according to articles in the academic and business press, is the ability of champions of sustainable supply chain management (SCM) projects within organizations to gain the commitment of colleagues (e.g., other managers from a variety of functions) to help these projects succeed. Therefore, this paper examines variables that affect a project champion's ability to gain this commitment from colleagues. In particular, building on existing research, this research employs a video‐based experimental design to examine the effect of the influence approach that the project champion employs, the values of the person the champion is trying to influence, and the organizational climate. The results suggest that organizational climate and certain individual values directly affect commitment. There are also interactions between values and influence tactics. The research adds to the field's growing knowledge on the antecedents of sustainable SCM within companies while providing valuable guidance for environmental champions and for top managers.     

绿色奥运中绿色供应链和绿色采购的应用分析

以国际奥委会的政策导向分析了绿色供应链管理应用于北京绿色奥运中的必要性。奥运物流系统本身的优化配置,需要供应链和采购进行整体绿色化管理,才能实现奥运物流系统的高效运作,保证赛事的正常运行。简述绿色供应链和绿色采购的概念和内涵,探讨其在2008北京绿色奥运中实施的主要内容并提出了实施的基本对策。     

全渠道模式下农产品供应链整合的理论框架与保障机制

全渠道模式下农产品供应链整合本质上体现为以全渠道营销逆向驱动农产品供应链整合的过程。推进全渠道模式下农产品供应链整合，一方面应结合全渠道模式发展对供应链的影响，并针对全渠道模式下农产品供应链整合的运作特点，从组织层面、资源层面、信息层面对农产品供应链进行深度变革与重构,推动形成以消费需求为核心、以全渠道能力为支撑、以信息技术为手段的农产品全渠道供应链网络和生态系统。另一方面，还必须建立一套以需求分析与反馈 机制、物流配送与追溯机制、信息共享与管理机制、利益协调与分配机制为核心的运营保障机制，以确保农产品供应链整合活动的有效进行。     

Reconstituting lean in healthcare: From waste elimination toward ‘queue-less’ patient-focused care

With ultra-short sightlines to its patient-customers, healthcare should pursue lean in its own way rather than follow the often wayward lean practices of manufacturing, a sector in which few people ever see real customers. Because of the distance in manufacturing from end customers, this sector’s lean practices usually focus inward on operational efficiency through waste elimination. The nature of healthcare—with customers up close and immediate—calls for elevating its lean efforts toward customer-focused lean effectiveness: flexibly quick response along the multiple flow paths leading to and involving patients. This article illustrates that approach to lean by drawing from a case study in which widely scattered heart attack patients were transported to a central treatment hospital in a system-wide, highly coordinated program of quick response. This article shows that the keys to success—including high rates of saving lives and lean healthcare in general—boil down to just five lean methodologies, each focused on quick response. Lean healthcare, when practiced in this way, becomes deserving of status as a fixture in strategic management of the enterprise.     

THE EFFECTS OF CULTURE AND HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT POLICIES ON SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT STRATEGY

Afirm's corporate culture and human resource management (HRM) policies have an important impact upon the success of that organization's supply chain management strategy. A model that examines the relationship between organizational culture, HRM policies, and the firm's transaction/relationship orientation toward its employees and the impact of these factors on its choice of supply chain partners is presented. The paper then discusses four different HRM/logistics strategies a firm can implement and examines the degree of cultural fit that is likely to develop in each of these four strategies. Finally, managers are provided with a list of questions that allow an assessment of the fit between the firm's human resource and logistics management strategies.     

绿色供应链管理理念初探

在新的环境时代,工业生产和环境保护能够共同协调发展。现今的公众已不仅要求企业对产生的废物进行处理,更要求企业减少产生污染环境的废物,而且要求企业进行绿色管理,生产绿色产品。面对这种挑战,第一步要做的就是重新定义供应链管理,把环境问题融入整个供应链过程。     

Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce Success: A Supply Network Perspective

DeLone and McLean (2004) have advanced an electronic commerce (EC) success model and suggest that it can be extended to investigating EC success in different contexts. However, the EC success model has not been empirically validated in the context of business-to-business (B2B) EC. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of EC value and success within the B2B environment. Accordingly, we introduce an extended version of DeLone and McLean’s (2004) EC success model, and test hypotheses regarding the associations between various success dimensions using the data collected from 122 supply chain units. In addition to providing support for most of the hypotheses suggested by DeLone and McLean’s (2004) EC success model, our results indicate that other success dimensions, such as EC readiness, must be considered for successful EC in B2B environments. The research findings provide practitioners with clarity on the levers of B2B e-commerce success within the supply chain unit level of analysis. Overall, the study’s results contribute to theoretical development in the area of business value creation and EC success, and present a basis for further research in these fields.     

Perceived Risks in Supply Chain Management E-Collaboration

ABSTRACT

Supply chain management is an accepted concept involving a process-oriented, integrated approach to procuring, producing, and delivering products and services to customers. The boom in applying Internet-based applications is driven by corporate desires to use wireless access, extranets, Internet-based EDI, e-marketplaces, web services and other remote networks for supply chain activities. This paper reports the findings of a study that aims to examine perceived risks of e-commerce in supply chain activities. The conceptual model developed from previous research identifies four types of risks, namely technological, organizational, implementation, and relational risks. The model is tested via in-depth multiple case studies in seven firms from a cross-section of different industries who applied e-technologies in their supply chain activities. The findings highlight factors that contribute to risks and the related undesirable consequences that the firms experienced.     

Bridging the Gap Between Strategy and Performance: Using Leadership Style to Enable Structural Elements

Successful leaders create structural elements in order to achieve the performance objectives set forth by organizational strategy. Supply chain oriented structural elements are reflected in an organization's relationships, both within the firm and with supply chain partners. In this research effort, we examine how such structural elements can be created as a means through which to enhance performance. Our hypothesized model is rooted in strategy‐structure‐performance theory and integrates elements of servant leadership theory and social exchange theory to explain how building organizational commitment via servant leadership behaviors can ultimately impact performance. We use a survey method to collect data from 158 motor carriers. The results of our structural equation model support our hypotheses and serve to extend the discussion of supply chain structural elements and the role of leadership style in achieving organizational performance.     

The Relationships Among Manager-, Employee-, and Customer-Company Identification: Implications For Retail Store Financial Performance

Based on the premise of an interpersonal “chain of influence” with respect to organizational identification, we posit a relationship between company managers, employees, and customers with respect to organizational identification with the retailer. Specifically, we hypothesize that the level of a store manager's identification with the retailer is positively related to the level of their store employees’ identification with the retailer, which in turn is positively related to the level of customers’ identification with the retailer, which results in increased levels of store financial performance. We investigate these relationships using data from 306 retail stores within a single retail chain.     

基于精益供应链管理的房地产集成开发

基于房地产业特点以及供应链管理发展现状,将精益思想和供应链管理思想运用到房地产开发中,提出了基于精益供应链管理的房地产集成开发模式,并就精益供应链集成开发子节点运作以及精益管理平台的构成进行了详细分析,同时探讨了在精益供应链中精益设计、精益施工和精益营销等具体应用,是对房地产企业开发模式进行了深层次探索。     

The anthropology of the supply chain: Fiefs,clans, witch-doctors and professors

Organizations in the West have learned the importance of organizing their businesses into cross-functional teams, focused on key business processes. In the future, even this will not be enough. Successful businesses will create value by implementing innovations across organizational boundaries: ‘cross-functional’ teams will become ‘cross-organizational’ teams. Supply chain management will need to nurture successful innovation within these cross-organizational teams. The fundamental challenges are social rather than technical, involving issues of trust, co-operation, power and politics. As a result of this, the roles and relationships required for best practice supply management are changing. This paper introduces new models that have been developed in order to understand the cultural context of customer-supplier relationships, and the roles and relationships needed for successful innovation in supply chains.     

A new way of thinking about IT project management practices: Early empirical results

Despite decades of efforts to improve the management of Information Technology (IT) projects, failure rates remain high. This article first reviews literature about information systems success and IT project success. Most of the improvement efforts have focused on advancing variations of the traditional project management paradigm, such as embodied by the Project Management Body of Knowledge. This article describes a new way of thinking about managing IT project called Value-Driven Change Leadership (VDCL), and reports the results of an initial empirical exploration to identify project success factors stemming from VDCL as well as the traditional paradigm. The results are based on data collected from 16 medium-sized IT-intensive projects at eight Chicago-based organizations from six different industries. The results, although not based on a large sample, point to several project management practices associated with project success that stem from both the traditional paradigm as well as VDCL. For example, traditional practices managing stakeholders’ expectations, scope, and schedule are associated with project success, as are practices stemming from VDCL, such as managing the end-product’s architecture, business value added, and the organization change associated with systems implementation. The results of this study also suggest that further research into new ways of thinking about IT project management may be fruitful.     

An Empirically Derived Framework of Global Supply Resiliency

In today’s global business environment, supply chains have increased in both length and complexity. This increase in length and complexity coupled with a focus on improving efficiency, such as lean manufacturing practices, may lead to higher levels of supply chain risk where the likelihood of a disruption severely impacting supply chain performance increases. Resilient supply chains have been touted as a means to reduce the likelihood and severity of supply chain disruptions. However, there is little empirical evidence relative to the factors that contribute to or detract from supply resiliency. Using systems theory and the resource‐based view of the firm as the theoretical underpinnings, this study provides an in‐depth systematic investigation of supply resiliency. Adopting a theory‐building approach based on a multi‐industry empirical investigation, this study derives empirical generalizations linking 19 supply chain characteristics to supply resiliency. The study culminates in a framework that could be used to assess the level of resiliency in a supply base. Building on this framework, the study also provides a supply resiliency matrix that can be utilized to classify supply chains, or supply chains segments according to the level of resiliency realized. This article concludes by proposing several future research directions and issues that may be investigated in more detail.     

Implementing Corporate Responsibility — The Chiquita Case

This article gives a practice-based overview of the implementation aspects of Corporate Responsibility. After discussing the success factors for implementing Corporate Responsibility, the article describes a model for implementing Corporate Responsibility. Special attention is given to the success factors in the subsequent phases of implementation (sensitivity to the organizational environment, awareness of core values and clear leadership), to ensure that the most optimal results attainable for the organization can be reached. The implementation-model is clarified by looking at experiences in implementing Corporate Responsibility at Chiquita.     

International joint ventures in Russia: Cultures' influences on alliance success

This paper investigates the influence of organizational culture on the strategic success of International Joint Ventures (IJVs) in Russia and the importance of cultural ‘fit’ of alliance partners within this transition economy. Difficult-to-access and rare data is gathered from a sample of IJVs manager in Russia in a strategy-as-practice approach. Questionnaires and in-depth interviews reveal different clusters of values and practices amongst managers and, contrary to previous research, the study suggests that within a transition economy values are not universally applied but influenced by tradition. Adopted organizational culture is also found to be dependent on the dominant IJV stake holding with culture influencing perceived IJV strategic performance. An element of congruency is identified between tradition and openness to change values.     

Supply Chain Transparency as a Consumer or Corporate Tool: The Case of Nudie Jeans Co

Outsourcing has led both to the embedding of questionable sustainability practices in opaque supply chains and to anti-sweatshop challenges demanding more transparent supply chains. Previous research has argued that supply chain transparency can be both a consumer tool empowering consumers to pressure disclosing firms to improve sustainability conditions and a corporate tool for increasing revenues. Based on a study of the transparency project of Swedish company Nudie Jeans, the authors demonstrate that consumers do not leverage transparency but that transparency improves consumer willingness to buy. In doing this, the authors contribute to the literature in two important ways. First, the authors provide one of the first, if not the first, studies of whether consumers in practice leverage increased supply chain transparency, challenging the previous research claim that supply chain transparency is a useful consumer tool. Second, the authors move beyond studies of purchasing intentions and willingness to buy in experimental settings and confirm that supply chain transparency is a useful corporate tool in practice. The authors conclude by discussing the policy implications of companies being able to use transparency to increase sales without subjecting themselves to increased consumer pressure.     

精益供应链在房地产业的应用

本文在介绍精益思想的起源和核心内容的基础上,创造性的将精益思想应用到房地产业的供应链中,并将精益思想延伸到整个供应链中,提出了精益供应链的概念,重点论述了在房地产市场经营过程中的具体应用,为房地产商决胜市场提供一种可靠的借鉴方法。