4,203 research outputs found

    Supply Chain Management Best Practices In Project Based Business Environment

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    The ever-growing competition in industrialized world has driven organizations to evaluate properly the possibilities to response the competition and seeking ways to differ from the other actors. Noting the high influence of supply chain management activities to the overall performance of the enterprise, has led to the re-structuring of procurement organizations and aiming towards more strategic approach to reach competitive advantage. This thesis-research was done as an assignment for Ruukki Building Systems Oy, by focusing to investigate best practices of supply chain management in four different sub-areas called; organization design, supply base management, make or buy and performance measurement. The aim is to benchmark best-in-class organizations and their actions in defined sub-areas. The research was conducted by using a qualitative method. The data was gathered by interviewing nine best-in-class organizations originated in Sweden and Finland. The empirical part was conducted as a benchmarking analysis based on the data gathered from the interviews. Due to the nature of the analysis, some assumptions and suppositions were made to be able to conduct conclusion. All terms and frameworks used in the research have been noted earlier in literature. Results prove that enterprises have been focusing highly to find balance internally in organizations to serve peer functions with strong effort, by achieving cost savings and thereby profitability. The strategic viewpoint of studied actions in field of supply chain management has noted significantly and driven to build up a framework to reach efficient and effective supply base which is measurable in terms of strategic alignment of corporate targets.Alati kiristyvä kilpailu teollistuneessa maailmassa on ajanut organisaatiot etsimään ja arvioimaan tarkasti mahdollisia keinoja vastata kilpailuun sekä erottautumaan muista toimijoista markkinoilla. Toimitusketjun hallintaan liittyvien tekijöiden vaikutus yrityksen kokonaisvaltaiseen tehokkuuteen, on ajanut yritykset järjestämään organisaatiota uudelleen ja tavoittelemaan strategisempaa lähestymistapaa hankintatoimien suorittamiseen kilpailukyvyn näkökulmasta. Tämä tutkimus tehtiin toimeksiantona Ruukki Building Systems Oy:lle. Työn tavoitteena oli vertailla menestyvien yritysten toimitusketjunhallintaan liittyviä käytänteitä, neljällä eri osa-alueella: hankinnan organisoituminen, toimittajapohjanhallinta, ulkoistaminen sekä mittaaminen ja raportointi. Työ toteutettiin laadullisena tutkimuksena. Empiirinen aineisto kerättiin haastattelemalla yhdeksää valittujen yritysten hankintajohtajaa Suomessa sekä Ruotsissa. Empiirinen osio suoritettiin vertailuanalyysina, jonka avulla pyrittiin löytämään parhaita käytänteitä toimitusketjunhallintaa projektiympäristössä. Joitain oletuksia ja tulkintoja tehtiin analyysin toteuttamiseksi. Kaikki termit ja mallit, joita tutkimuksessa käsitellään, on esitetty aiemmissa tutkimuksissa. Tulokset osoittavat, että yritykset ovat pyrkineet tasapainottamaan organisaation ja sen rakenteen palvellakseen tehokkaasti rinnakkaisfunktioita, saavuttaakseen kustannussäästöjä ja siten kannattavuutta. Strateginen näkökulma tutkituilla osa-alueilla on nähty kriittisenä tekijänä, jotta pystyttäisiin rakentamaan viitekehys, jota pystytään johtamaan tehokkaasti sekä mittaamaan organisaation strategisten tavoitteiden saavuttamiseksi

    Changes and Challenges of ERP Implementation in the Context of Procurement and Supply Chain Processes - A Case Study at Maersk Drilling

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    Problem Discussion: The oil and gas sector is not very mature in terms of supply chain management. The chosen case company, Maersk Drilling (MD), has problems with a split IT-­landscape with poor data quality. It has caused problems with inefficient and complex processes with much communication required, parallel information and more. Within procurement it translates to problems in spend management and time wasted with tracing orders. The ERP system plays an important role in supporting information sharing, cross-­functional ways of working and a better overview. By introducing a new ERP system some major changes are expected within supply chain and processes will have to be changed. The ERP project is significant hence there are many stakeholders who may perceive the potential challenges differently. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to dig deeper into how the change with a new ERP system will affect the procurement and supply chain processes at Maersk Drilling. The changes bring challenges as well. The study gives a deep understanding of the perceptions of challenges from the different actors. It is important in order to see if everyone works towards the same goal. Methodology: This thesis is a qualitative single case study. The theory was gathered prior to a pre-­study that was made at the company in order to grasp the problem and come up with the research questions. Thirteen interviews were made and archival data from the company was collected. This provided several sources of data and triangulation was possible. The data collection was then matched with the theory in order to secure that the theory would cover the specific research questions. After that the analysis was conducted where empirical data was compared with the theory. Finally the conclusions from the whole study were drawn. Frame of Reference: The reasoning when setting the theoretical framework was that the ERP project is the start of a radical change in the way of working at MD. Many processes are redesigned or improved. The whole study is within the procurement and supply chain area and with this reasoning we then set up the structure for the theoretical framework containing the three areas; Procurement and SCM, Processes, and ERP. In the latter change management plays an important role since the new system means a major change in the way of working for many persons at the case company. Conclusions: ERP has been an enabler for the changes and the new processes will become more streamlined, standardized and cross-­functional. Increased information sharing will help MD to work more efficient and additional/improved data will give MD an enhanced overview in form of management reporting. The new ERP system was not affecting the level of centralization very much, since the structure of decisions in procurement was not changed. The challenges in implementing these changes have been communicated well between the stakeholders and the view of the challenges is overall unified. Master data was perceived as the biggest challenge, most likely since the project is in the establish phase and that MD has a starting point with very poor data. The data quality is of high importance when migrating data to the new system. MD furthermore needs to look closely at how the offshore personnel perceive the project and how they will meet the changes. The vision was also containing technical and management jargons, which makes it less understandable. Today they use good information and many channels but MD needs to make sure that the communication reaches the end users to achieve buy-­in.Problemdiskussion: Sektorn för olja och gas är inte särskilt mogen när det gäller kunskapen om försörjningskedjor. Det valda företaget för fallstudien, Maersk Drilling (MD), har problem med ett splittrat IT-­landskap och dålig datakvalitet. Det har orsakat problem med ineffektiva och komplexa processer där det krävs onödig kommunikation, parallell inmatning av data, etc. Inom upphandlingar och inköp leder det till problem med förståelsen för hur pengarna spenderas och tid slösas bort med att spåra order. Affärssystemet(ERP) spelar en viktig roll för att stödja informationsutbyte, tvärfunktionella arbetssätt och ge en bättre överblick. Genom att införa ett nytt affärssystem väntas stora förändringar inom leveranskedjan och processer kommer att behöva ändras. ERP-­projektet är så pass omfattande och de olika aktörerna kan därför uppfatta de potentiella utmaningarna på olika sätt. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att gräva djupare i hur förändringen med ett nytt ERP-­system kommer att påverka inköps-­ och logistikprocesser hos Maersk. Eftersom ERP-­projektet är stort med många personer inblandade, kommer det att innebära förändringar i organisationen och i de roller och ansvarsområden som finns. Det är viktigt att få en djup förståelse för de olika uppfattningarna i projektet när det gäller utmaningarna, för att se om alla arbetar mot samma mål och har samma uppfattning. Metod: Uppsatsen är en kvalitativ fallstudie. En del teori studerades inför en förstudie som gjordes på företaget för att förstå problemet och komma på de forskningsfrågor som uppsatsen skulle bygga på. 13 intervjuer gjordes och arkivdata från företaget samlades in. Detta gav forskarna flera datakällor och triangulering var möjligt. Datainsamlingen matchades sedan med teorin för att säkerställa att teorin skulle täcka de specifika forskningsfrågorna. I analysen jämfördes empirisk data med teorin och slutligen så drogs slutsatserna från hela studien. Referensram: Resonemanget när den teoretiska ramen framställdes var att ERP-­projektet är början på en radikal förändring i sättet att arbeta på MD. Många processer kommer göras om eller förbättras. Hela studien är inom inköps-­ och försörjningskedje-­ området och med detta resonemang skapades sedan en struktur för det teoretiska ramverk som innehåller de tre områdena; försörjningskedjor och inköp, processutveckling och affärssystem (ERP). I den sistnämna inkluderas även förändringsarbete vilket spelar en viktig roll då det nya systemet innebär en stor förändring i sättet att arbeta för många personer på fall företaget. Slutsats: Affärssystemet har varit en möjliggörare för förändringarna och de nya processerna kommer att bli mer effektiva, standardiserade och tvärfunktionella. Ökad informationsdelning kommer att hjälpa MD att arbeta mer effektivt och utökad/förbättrad data ger MD en överblick i form av ledningsrapportering. Det nya affärssystemet påverkar inte graden av centralisering nämnvärt eftersom strukturen av besluten i inköpsprocessen inte kommer förändras. Utmaningarna med att genomföra dessa förändringar har kommunicerats väl mellan de berörda parterna. Master data uppfattades som den största utmaningen, troligen eftersom projektet är i etableringsfasen och MD har en utgångspunkt med dålig data. Datakvaliteten är även av stor betydelse vid förflyttning av data till det nya systemet. MD behöver dessutom titta närmare på hur offshore personalen uppfattar projektet och hur de kommer att bemöta förändringarna. Visionen innehåller teknisk och administrativ jargong, vilket gör det mindre begripligt, och den behöver utvecklas. Idag använder många informationskanaler, men MD måste se till att kommunikationen når slutanvändarna för att få dem att anamma det nya systemet

    A Qualitative Study of Industry and Air Force Commodity Council Processes

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    The purpose of this research was to compare industry and Air Force commodity council processes. More specifically, this research used a survey to gather strategic sourcing philosophies and procedures (with respect to small business participation in procurement strategies) from successful industry firms. Industry source selection documentation, applicable government contracting guidelines, and a literature review of strategic sourcing materials were also reviewed. The current Air Force commodity council process and associated historical documents were then studied using a business process modeling tool. It was determined that the Air Force process differs from industry in how small business participation is addressed, the level of detail provided in their source selection guidance, and the manner in which industry business practices are utilized. A modified Air Force commodity council process model and associated commodity council implementation and operations guide (IG5307.104-93) was proposed

    The Procurement Perspectives of Fruits and Vegetables Supply Chain Planning

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    Supply chain planning in the fruits and vegetables (FV) supply chains, dealing with short life cycled products in a competitive marketplace, integrates the complex network farmers, food processing and supply to end customers to enhance operations effectiveness

    Influence of Inventory Control Practices on Procurement Performance of Public Hospitals in Trans Nzoia County

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    Hospitals procure almost all the products that they use for both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical purposes, food items, cleaning agents among others. A significant amount of hospitals’ expenditure goes to purchasing of these items. However, poor inventory control of these products lead to loss, misuse, lack of accountability and poor management of these products. This study looked at the relationship between inventory control practices and procurement performance of public hospitals in Trans Nzoia County with regards to use of economic order quantity, safety stock ordering, first-in-first-out and inventory audit. The main objective of this study was to assess the influence of inventory control practices on procurement performance of public hospitals in Trans Nzoia County. A survey research design was used in this study. The study was conducted in public hospitals in Trans Nzoia County which comprised of Kitale County Hospital, Mt. Elgon Hospital and six sub-county hospitals (Endebes, Kwanza, Cherang'any, Saboti, Kapsara and Matunda Sub-County Hospitals). The study employed census as the sampling technique. The sample size for this study was 47 respondents comprising of heads of departments of procurement and stores, their assistants as well as employees working in those departments. A structured questionnaire was used for collecting data. The research instrument was pretested at Kapenguria County Referral Hospital and Chepararia sub-county hospital; West Pokot County. Collected data was analyzed using statistical package SPSS. Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression were used for inferential analysis. The study found out that the use of economic order quantity had significant influence on procurement performance of public hospitals in Trans Nzoia County. However, EOQ did not take into account changing consumer demand and seasonal changes in inventory costs. Safety stock ordering had significant influence on procurement performance of public hospitals in Trans Nzoia County. Hospitals always had safety stocks of its inventories. Safety stock ordering absorbed the variability of customer demand and was used to protect the hospital from stock-outs caused by inaccurate planning. High level of safety stock ordering led high customer satisfaction. However, high level of safety stock ordering led to high holding costs for the hospitals. FIFO had a positive significant influence on procurement performance of public hospitals in Trans Nzoia County. FIFO resulted in a higher ending inventory and lower cost of inventory. Inventory audit had a positive significant influence on procurement performance of public hospitals in Trans Nzoia County. Inventory audit ensured timely and adequate identification and evaluation of inventories and enabled the hospitals evade risks associated with stock such as unnecessarily high stock levels. The study recommended that hospitals should find a complementary inventory control practice to the use of EOQ which takes take into account changing consumer demand and seasonal changes in inventory costs

    The Strategic Supply Chain Management in the Digital Era, Tactical vs Strategic

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    The perspective of procurement and supply chain management is changing dramatically; traditionally, it was seen as a support function; however, the procurement function is receiving increased attention and investment as an essential contributor to the strategic success and a business enabler. While an end-to-end digital supply chain is an opportunity as it unleashes the next level of strategic growth and involves minimal investment in infrastructure, it is still a challenge to optimize and transform. Furthermore, the recent pandemics and geopolitical disruptions of Covid-19, the Ukraine-Russian war, Brexit and the US-China trade war; have structurally changed the global economy and revealed a new risk assessment that will result in the re-introduction of buffers, boundaries across industries and a partial return to regionalization with sort of de-globalization in which existing just-in-time getting replaced by just-in-case strategy

    The enterprise blockchain design framework and its application to an e-Procurement ecosystem

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    The research work of this paper has been partially funded by the project VORTAL INTER DATA (n° 038361), co-financed by Vortal and COMPETE Program P2020. We would also like to thank UNIDEMI, DEMI, and LASI for providing us with the research infrastucture and resources to conduct this research. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Elsevier LtdBlockchain technologies have seen a steady growth in interest from industries as the technology is gaining maturity. It is offering a novel way to establish trust amongst multiple stakeholders without relying or trusting centralised authorities. While its use as a decentralised store of value has been validated through the emergence of cryptocurrencies, its use case in industrial applications with multiple stakeholder ecosystems such as industrial supply chain management, is still at an early stage of design and experimentation where private blockchains are used as opposed to public blockchains. Many enterprise blockchain projects failed to gain traction after initial launches, due to inefficient design, lack of incentives to all stakeholders or simply because the use of blockchain was not really necessary in the first place. There has been a need for a framework that allows blockchain designers and researchers to evaluate scenarios when a blockchain solution is useful and design the key configurations for an enterprise blockchain solution. Literature on blockchain architectures are sparse and only applicable to specific use cases or functionalities. This paper proposes a comprehensive Enterprise Blockchain Design Framework (EBDF), that not only identifies the relevant use cases when a blockchain must be utilised, but also details all the characteristics and configurations for designing an enterprise blockchain ecosystem, applicable to multiple industries. To validate the EBDF, we apply the same to the Vortal e-Procurement ecosystem allowing for multiple platforms to interoperate with greater transparency and accountability over the proposed blockchain framework. In this use case, many vendors bid for procurement procedures, often for publicly managed funds where it is extremely vital that full transparency and accountability is ensured in the entire process. Ensuring that certain digital certification functions, such as timestamps are independent from e-Procurement platform owners has been a challenge. Blockchain technology has emerged as a promising solution for not only ensuring transparency and immutability of records, but also providing for interoperability across different platforms by acting as a trusted third-party. The applied framework is used to design a Hyperledger based blockchain solution with some of the key architectural elements that could fulfil these needs while presenting the advantages of such a solution.publishersversionpublishe

    The Challenge of Component Purchasing Excellence – a Case Study at Nahoj Nim

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    Nahoj Nim has for a long time been very successful at developing, producing and selling packaging solutions for the food industry. Today, however, Nahoj Nim faces a new challenge as competitors are gaining market shares. The purchasing unit Component & Technical Consultant Purchasing (hereafter referred to as C&TCP), involved in sourcing, contracting and managing the supplier base for components and technical consultants, have until now had no or little involvement in the product development and production processes. In product development the designers have historically had the liberty to choose components and parts as well as suppliers simply by technology standards. No or little attention has been directed towards the commercial aspects, which has lead to a proliferation of different components used and the supplier base has grown rapidly. As Nahoj Nim faces new challenges, so does C&TCP. In order to be able to support the business with an efficient and structured purchasing of components and technical consultants C&TCP needs to make some changes. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze the purchasing function Component & Technical Consultant Purchasing and to suggest organizational changes in order to achieve purchasing excellence. Methodology: The research has been conducted as a descriptive case-study in order to do an in-depth analysis of the present situation. The qualitative collection of the primary empirical data has mainly been made by numerous interviews, internally at C&TCP as well as externally with key informants at Nahoj Nim in Lund, Sweden, and Modena, Italy. The secondary data has been gathered from written sources; literature, articles and e-sources. Conclusions: The purchasing of components and technical consultants at C&TCP is today merely 25 percent as efficient as the most prominent purchasing organizations world-wide. The department is organizationally placed in contradiction to the responsibility of being a global purchasing function for Nahoj Nim. By not being active before or beyond the contracting part of the supply chain, C&TCP lacks influence and information needed to manage the supplier base efficiently. In order to excel, operational as well as strategic changes are required. In addition, Nahoj Nim would profit from C&TCP being more actively involved in product development by possibly lowering the total life-cycle-costs, improving quality and provide the internal customers with a high quality supplier base

    Sustainable supplier selection and order allocation for multinational enterprises considering supply disruption in COVID-19 era

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    The unprecedented outbreak of COVID-19 has left many multinational enterprises facing extremely severe supply disruptions. Besides considering triple-bottom-line requirements, managers now also have to consider supply disruption due to the pandemic more seriously. However, existing research does not take these two key objectives into account simultaneously. To bridge this research gap, based on the characteristics of COVID-19 and similar global emergency events, this paper proposes a model that aims to solve the problem of sustainable supplier selection and order allocation considering supply disruption in the COVID-19 era. It does so by using a multi-stage multi-objective optimization model applied to the different stages of development and spread of the pandemic. Then, a novel nRa-NSGA-II algorithm is proposed to solve the high-dimensional multi-objective optimization model. The applicability and effectiveness of the proposed model is illustrated in a well-known multinational producer of shortwave therapeutic instruments

    Market research: Outsourcing companies' indirect procurements to a third party (Company X Ltd.)

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    This thesis examines the possible market interest in Finland towards outsourcing indirect procurement to a market entry level company (Company X Ltd). The objective of this study is to present the case company background of the current market situation and interest for its business plan. The study’s primary objective is to provide the case company with statistical knowledge that will give a competitive advantage in the Finnish market and detailed information of customer expectations on the indirect procurement service. In the theoretical section, the concepts and theories of purchasing, purchase management and outsourcing are defined. This section also explains the theoretical topics, such as supply chain, networks and partnership. The research approach of this thesis can be classified as the quantitative approach, since this research required acquiring statistical data. Data collection methods are questionnaires. The questionnaires were designed on the basic of the relative theoretical fields. The empirical section describes the background information of the case company and lists the data analysis details. The crucial information has been analyzed from the questionnaires’ responses and the important findings have been presented. In the conclusion section of the thesis, the research conclusion and recommendations have been presented for the case company.Market research: Outsourcing companies’ indirect procurements to a third party (Company X Ltd.) Opinnäytetyössä tutkitaan mahdollista markkina kiinnostusta Suomessa sijaitsevaan epäsuorien hankintojen ulkoistusta tarjoavaa yritystä kohtaan. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on esitellä tutkitun yrityksen markkinatilannetta ja liiketoimintasuunnitelman merkitystä. Tutkimuksessa tavoitteena oli myös esittää tilastollista tietoa yrityksen luomiseksi Suomen markkinoilla sekä havainnollistaa yksityiskohtaisesti kuluttajien odotuksiin kohdistuvaa tietoa epäsuorassa ostotoiminnassa. Opinnäytetyön teoriaosuudessa määritellään ostotoiminnan käsitteet ja teoriat, sekä oston hallinto ja ulkoistaminen. Lisäksi teoriaosuudessa käsitellään ostoketjun, verkoston ja osakkuuden teoreettiset taustat. Tutkimuksessa käytettiin kvantitatiivista, määrällistä, tutkimusta, koska kvantitatiivinen tutkimus vaatii tilastollista tarkastelua. Tilastollisen tiedon kerääminen toteutettiin kyselykaavakkeella, tutkimuksen perusteoriatietoon liittyvien kysymysten avulla. Opinnäytetyön empiirinen osuus kuvaa tutkitun yrityksen taustatietoa sekä analysoi yksityiskohtaisesti tutkittua tietoa.Kyselykaavakkeen vastausten perusteella on havainnollistettu ja analysoitu tutkimuksen kannalta oleva tärkein tieto. Opinnäytetyön johtopäätöksissä esitellään lopuksi tutkimuksen yhteenveto ja suositukset tutkitulle yrityksell
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