A decision-making approach for investigating the potential effects of near sourcing on supply chain

Purpose - Near sourcing is starting to be regarded as a valid alternative to global sourcing in order to leverage supply chain (SC) responsiveness and economic efficiency. The present work proposes a decision-making approach developed in collaboration with a leading Italian retailer that was willing to turn the global store furniture procurement process into near sourcing. Design/methodology/approach - Action research is employed. The limitations of the traditional SC organisation and purchasing process of the company are first identified. On such basis, an inventory management model is applied to run spreadsheet estimates where different purchasing and SC management strategies are adopted to determine the solution providing the lowest cost performance. Finally, a risk analysis of the selected best SC arrangement is conducted and results are discussed. Findings - Switching from East Asian suppliers to continental vendors enables a SC reengineering that increases flexibility and responsiveness to demand uncertainty which, together with decreased transportation costs, assures economic viability, thus proving the benefits of near sourcing. Research limitations/implications - The decision-making framework provides a methodological roadmap to address the comparison between near and global sourcing policies and to calculate the savings of the former against the latter. The approach could include additional organisational aspects and cost categories impacting on near sourcing and could be adapted to investigate different products, services, and business sectors. Originality/value - The work provides SC researchers and practitioners with a structured approach for understanding what drives companies to adopt near sourcing and for quantitatively assessing its advantage

The effects of knowledge management on innovative success: an empirical analysis of German firms

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effects of knowledge management on the innovation success of firms in Germany. Using a matching procedure on data from the German Innovation Survey of 2003 (Mannheim Innovation Panel), we pair firms applying knowledge management with twin firms with similar characteristics not applying knowledge management. Our focus is on investigating the effects of knowledge management techniques on the economic success of firms with product and process innovations. The results of our matching analysis reveal that firms which apply knowledge management perform better in terms of higher-than-average shares of turnover with innovative products compared to their twins. We do not find a significant effect of knowledge management on the share of cost reductions with process innovation. --knowledge management,innovation,matching estimator

Internet of Things and Their Coming Perspectives: A Real Options Approach

Internet of things is developing at a dizzying rate, and companies are forced to implement it in order to maintain their operational efficiency. The high flexibility inherent to these technologies makes it necessary to apply an appropriate measure, which properly assesses risks and rewards. Real options methodology is available as a tool which fits the conditions, both economic and strategic, under which investment in internet of things technologies is developed. The contribution of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it offers an adequate tool to assess the strategic value of investment in internet of things technologies. On the other hand, it tries to raise awareness among managers of internet of things technologies because of their potential to contribute to economic and social progress. The results of the research described in this paper highlight the importance of taking action as quickly as possible if companies want to obtain the best possible performance. In order to enhance the understanding of internet of things technologies investment, this paper provides a methodology to assess the implementation of internet of things technologies by using the real options approach; in particular, the option to expand has been proposed for use in the decision-making process

Performance optimization of a leagility inspired supply chain model: a CFGTSA algorithm based approach

Lean and agile principles have attracted considerable interest in the past few decades. Industrial sectors throughout the world are upgrading to these principles to enhance their performance, since they have been proven to be efficient in handling supply chains. However, the present market trend demands a more robust strategy incorporating the salient features of both lean and agile principles. Inspired by these, the leagility principle has emerged, encapsulating both lean and agile features. The present work proposes a leagile supply chain based model for manufacturing industries. The paper emphasizes the various aspects of leagile supply chain modeling and implementation and proposes a new Hybrid Chaos-based Fast Genetic Tabu Simulated Annealing (CFGTSA) algorithm to solve the complex scheduling problem prevailing in the leagile environment. The proposed CFGTSA algorithm is compared with the GA, SA, TS and Hybrid Tabu SA algorithms to demonstrate its efficacy in handling complex scheduling problems

ABSTRACTS: CONTRIBUTED PAPERS

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Vertical Aliances between Retail and Manufacturer Companies in the Fashion Industry

While vertical firms dominate the fashion markets worldwide since years, only little research is done on vertical alliances between non-vertical retailer and manufacturing companies in this sector. These paper analyses vertical alliances from the perspective of 98 traditional fashion retailers and 104 fashion manufacturers. Based on a process oriented value chain approach, the results show how primary market and supply chain oriented value chain activities are viewed in the context of alliances, particularly in terms of own competence, perceived potential for co-operation, and the level of co-operation achieved. The data show that retailers and manufacturers see co-operation potentials in value chain activities with both low and high levels of own competence. Secondly the data show that co-operation potentials identified by both partners and the co-operation levels achieved differ. Third the data show the relation between the co-operation levels achieved in the value chain activities and the degree of success in turnover, costs, and time-to- market.fashion retail, value chain, vertical alliances, co-operation

The improvement of supply chain performances through process modeling and multivariate analysis

In the supply chain management (SCM), the ability to fulfill the highly fluctuative demand in the most efficient way without compromising the product and/or service quality is seen as a strong value added that can contribute to the organization's financial performance and reputation. This study will explore the significance of the fluctuative demand towards the supply chain KPI performances. As an industry that is prone to demand fluctuation, a pharmaceutical case study company will be used as part of the empirical study. The method will be implemented through business process modeling and simulation using ExtendSim 9 scenario analysis, followed by multivariate analysis using SAS. The objective is to understand how the seasonal demand fluctuation statistically impacts the SCM system and how can it be handled better to sustain and improve the SCM performance level. The results for this study is that both demand and process variation have statistically shown significance in affecting the KPI performances. It furthermore shows that both production methods that are done within the organization's internal location are more sustainable against the demand increase in comparison to the toll out manufacturing system. The minimization use for toll out manufacturing is seen as strongly beneficial in the long run as the system has shown high vulnerability, and an investment to increase the in-house production capacity is seen as pivotal move in order to provide a greater manufacturing flexibility in the long run.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format