The Integrated Product Policy and the Innovation Process: An Overview

The first part of this report presents the main debates concerning a proposal for establishing an Integrated Product Policy (IPP) in Europe. It shows the importance of applying a systemic approach in order to minimize the negative environmental impacts of products throughout their life cycle and how this policy differs from the traditional ways of dealing with this question. It presents a framework in which governments, local authorities, businesses and non-governmental organisations interact to adopt green product policies and to promote a greener demand. The main instruments necessary to put forward such a strategy are introduced and discussed. The second part of the report concentrates on a central issue of the IPP, namely the process of innovation as a key determinant in the greening of markets. This second section intends to (1) identify the specificities of innovation in an environmental context in order to acknowledge the need for a holistic and coordinated policy and (2) to present some limits of the IPP in its conceptual approach. Dans un premier temps, cette étude présente les grandes discussions entourant la mise en place d'une Politique Intégrée de Produits (PIP) en Europe. Elle insiste sur l'importance d'adopter une approche systémique afin de minimiser les impacts environnementaux dommageables des produits, et ce tout au long de leur cycle de vie. L'étude précise par ailleurs le caractère singulier de la PIP dans le traitement qu'elle apporte à la réduction des préjudices environnementaux. Le cadre dans lequel les gouvernements, les autorités locales et les organisations interagissent, afin de mettre en place cette politique encourageant une offre et une demande plus 'vertes', sera alors présenté. La dernière partie de la section s'attache enfin à introduire et à discuter les instruments nécessaires à la construction et à l'implantation de cette stratégie Dans un second temps, cette étude s'intéresse à l'examen d'un aspect fondamental de la PIP, à savoir le processus d'innovation en tant que déterminant majeur dans la transformation des marchés. Il s'agira alors d'identifier les spécificités de l'innovation environnementale afin de révéler l'utilité d'une approche systématique et coordonnée. Enfin, les limites relatives à l'approche conceptuelle de l'innovation dans la PIP sont évoquées et discutées.Integrated Product Policy (IPP), life cycle analysis (LCA), innovation, sustainability, environmental management., Politique Intégrée des Produits (PIP), analyse de cycle de vie (ACV), pérennité, développement durable, innovation, gestion environnementale

A Case Study Of E-Supply Chain & Business Process Reengineering Of A Semiconductor Company In Malaysia

Penglibatan e-perniagaan dalam rantaian bekalan telah mewujudkan e-rantaian bekalan yang baru (e-SC) di firma-firma tempatan dan global. Due to globalization and advancement in information technology (IT), companies adopt best practices in e-business and supply chain management to be globally competitive as both are realities and prospects in 21st century

Applications of lean thinking: a briefing document

This report has been put together by the Health and Care Infrastructure Research and Innovation Centre (HaCIRIC) at the University of Salford for the Department of Health. The need for the report grew out of two main simple questions, o Is Lean applicable in sectors other than manufacturing? o Can the service delivery sector learn from the success of lean in manufacturing and realise the benefits of its implementation?The aim of the report is to list together examples of lean thinking as it is evidenced in the public and private service sector. Following a review of various sources a catalogue of evidence is put together in an organised manner which demonstrates that Lean principles and techniques, when applied rigorously and throughout an entire organization/unit, they can have a positive impact on productivity, cost, quality, and timely delivery of services

Supply chain uncertainty:a review and theoretical foundation for future research

Supply-chain uncertainty is an issue with which every practising manager wrestles, deriving from the increasing complexity of global supply networks. Taking a broad view of supply-chain uncertainty (incorporating supply-chain risk), this paper seeks to review the literature in this area and develop a theoretical foundation for future research. The literature review identifies a comprehensive list of 14 sources of uncertainty, including those that have received much research attention, such as the bullwhip effect, and those more recently described, such as parallel interaction. Approaches to managing these sources of uncertainty are classified into: 10 approaches that seek to reduce uncertainty at its source; and, 11 approaches that seek to cope with it, thereby minimising its impact on performance. Manufacturing strategy theory, including the concepts of alignment and contingency, is then used to develop a model of supply-chain uncertainty, which is populated using the literature review to show alignment between uncertainty sources and management strategies. Future research proposed includes more empirical research in order to further investigate: which uncertainties occur in particular industrial contexts; the impact of appropriate sources/management strategy alignment on performance; and the complex interplay between management strategies and multiple sources of uncertainty (positive or negative)

Coupling Performance Measurement and Collective Activity: The Semiotic Function of Management Systems. A Case Study

Theories about management instruments often enter dualistic debates between structure and agency: do instruments determine the forms of collective activity (CA), or do actors shape instruments to their requirements, or are instruments and concrete activity decoupled, as some trends of new institutionalist theory assume? Attempts to overcome the dualistic opposition between structure and activity stem from diverse sources: actors’ networks theory, structuration theory, pragmatism, theory of activity, semiotics. Performance measurement and management systems can be defined as structural instruments engaged in CA. As such they constrain the activity, but they do not determine it. Reciprocally, they are modified by the way CA uses them and makes sense of them. The central thesis of this paper will be that it is impossible to study the role of performance measurement as a common language in organizations independently from the design of the CA in which it is engaged. There is a not deterministic coupling between structure (i.e. management technical tools) and CA (i.e. business processes). The transformation of CA entails a transformation in the meaning of the “performance” concept, in the type of measurement required and in the performance management practices. The relationship between performance measurement and CA is studied here in the production division of a large electricity utility in France. The research extended over several years and took place when two new management systems were simultaneously implemented: a new management accounting system and an integrated management information system (ERP), both in the purchasing process. The new management accounting system was designed by the purchasing department; the new management information system was designed by the operational departments. Whereas the coherence between both projects could have been given by their common subordination to the rebuilding of CA (the purchasing process), their disconnection from concrete CA opened the possibility of serious dissonances between them. Both the new performance management system and the new ERP met difficulties to provide common languages, since the dimension of CA was taken for granted and consequently partly ignored in the engineering of both systems. When CA incurs radical transformations, actors’direct discursive exchanges about it, “collective activity about collective activity”, become necessary to ensure a flexible and not deterministic coupling between CA and new management systems. This reflexive and collective analysis of the process by actors themselves requires the establishment of “communities of process”, which can jointly redesign the CA and its performance measurement system. We conclude that performance measurement can be a common language as far as there is a clear and shared understanding of how CA should concretely take place and should be assigned to the different categories of actors.Business Process; Collective Activity; Community of Process; Management Instruments; Performance Measurement; Semiotics; Theory of Activity

A Taxonomy of Supply Chain Collaboration

Supply chain collaboration has emerged as an important cooperative strategy leading to new focus on interorganisational boundaries as the determinants of performance. Although collaboration increasingly receives great attention both from practitioners and academics, relatively little attention has been given to systematically reviewing the research literature that has appeared about supply chain collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to examine previous studies on supply chain collaboration based on a taxonomy. The proposed taxonomy is composed of four different research streams of describing specific subjects of interorganisational settings, namely information sharing, business processes, incentive schemes, and performance systems. The analysis includes the assessment of research ideas and key findings. Results show the great variability of key concepts across the four components of the taxonomy and an increased awareness of complementarity amongst research streams. Several recommendations for future research are also identified in this paper

A Taxonomy of Supply Chain Collaboration

Supply chain collaboration has emerged as an important cooperative strategy leading to new focus on interorganisational boundaries as the determinants of performance. Although collaboration increasingly receives great attention both from practitioners and academics, relatively little attention has been given to systematically reviewing the research literature that has appeared about supply chain collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to examine previous studies on supply chain collaboration based on a taxonomy. The proposed taxonomy is composed of four different research streams of describing specific subjects of interorganisational settings, namely information sharing, business processes, incentive schemes, and performance systems. The analysis includes the assessment of research ideas and key findings. Results show the great variability of key concepts across the four components of the taxonomy and an increased awareness of complementarity amongst research streams. Several recommendations for future research are also identified in this paper. Keywords: supply chain collaboration, literature review, supply chain management, taxonom