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Supply Chain Commitment and Business Process Integration The implication of Confucian dynamism Muhammad Asif Salam

Summary:
The purpose of this article is to determine the impact of behavioral determinants on SCM. Supply chain management encompasses more than the activities of any individual corporate function. Survey method was used and tested the relationships with Structural Equation Modeling. One noticeable finding of the paper was the nature of supply chain commitment within Confucian culture. Many hypotheses were developed and tested by the author. This study revealed that different management; marketing and behavioral determinants influence commitment to the SCM and SCM business integration. Three elements of SCM are supply chain structure, management components and business processes were described. Supply chain attempts to manage both upstream and downstream processes within the supply chain, while the marketing tends to focus only on the downstream processes. Supply chain management business process integration was measured through customer relationship management, demand management and new product development. Supply chain commitment was measured through affective, normative (remain with the organization) and continuance (financial and non-financial costs) commitment. Marketing determinants of Supply chain management were idiosyncratic investments (investment in specific relationships), product saleability (having good value to the customers) and dependence (difficulty of the distributor when they do not have suppliers customers). The behavioral determinants of Supply chain management were continuity (future interaction), communication (internal and external), power (control decision variables) and trust (willingness to rely on partners). Behavioral determinants has a direct influence on supply chain commitment but indirect to business process integration. Marketing determinants has a direct effect on supply chain commitment and business process integration, and supply chain commitment does have a significant direct effect on business process integration. Confucian dynamism is to identify time orientation of the culture. High Confucian dynamism relate with more values of persistence, respect for status and thrift. Low Confucian dynamism relate with the stability, saving face and respect for traditions.

Critical Review:
The behavioral determinants (continuity, communication, power and trust) are new concept in this paper. Besides this there is nothing new in paper under observation. In this paper, it is written that partners have to make some sacrifices, but it is not explained that what kind of sacrifices should be made by the trading partners. In behavioral determinants, power is one of the determinants. The author has explained about shift in power. Shift in power will be a great danger for the company because after losing power the company will not be able to handle the products properly. The results cannot be generalized because the data was collected from different organization from Thailand. But these results are somewhat indicative of impact of the behavioral determinants on supply chain management and business process integration.

2.

Process Approach to Supply Chain Integration Peter Trkman and et al.

Summary:
In this article the author presented an approach to supply chain integration with the help of a case study. He emphasized on using the technology especially the simulation, when analyzing the old strategies and devising new ones for the improvement of the businesses. Author refers the SCOR (Supply Chain Operation reference Model) model which based on Five Management steps. Plan, Source, Make, Deliver and return. The author has also explained the Process Maturity Model given by Lockamy and McCormack, 2004. . It has five levels which are Adhoc, Defined, Linked, Integrated and Extended, starting from Ad-hoc (least effective) to Extended (most effective). In the given case study of petrol pumps, firstly, the author has given the AS-IS analysis. AS-IS analysis is drawing the activities performed by the petrol pump company before any improvements to the activities perform by it or the petrol pumps. He has explained how the pumps start a process of petrol purchase and how many activities and individuals are involves in it. After that, he proposes some changes for the improvement of the company. That is called the TO-BE that is where the company want to be in future. That is how the present activities can be made better and how processes are integrated. We saw that after the integration of the processes the company made many improvements in terms of reducing costs, enhancing profits and lower distortions. The author has made a point that the companies should perform AS-IS and TO-BE analysis, if they want to be competitive in this world where the companies do not fight, but their supply chains do.

Critical Review:
All the analysis is applicable to standardized products. New concept of supply chain maturity is discussed but it is not discussed in detail, so that; it could be understood in noble manner. At one point in the paper, the author emphasized the importance of information sharing and at other; he explained that the company can lose control if it shares the critical information with others. If you cannot share the information then, the element of trust will not be produced. It was assumed in the case study that the transport company will assume more responsibilities. But in reality the transport company may take responsibilities after observing all the costs and benefits associated with these additional responsibilities. The costs of change from AS-IS to TO-BE has not been accounted for in the case study, if these costs were accounted for, the result might be different from the given in the paper.

3. ROLE-PLAYING: A LEARNING PROCESS TO AID SUPPLY CHAIN INTEGRATION Summary

Supply chain management is a cross-disciplinary, cross-industry concept designed to maximize the value-added achieved as product and services, information and financials flow through suppliers and intermediary firms to the end user. Supply chain roles predominately fall into two categories defined as hard systems or process centered e.g. engineering or production and soft systems participants such as marketers who focus primarily on behavioural issues to satisfy customer demand. The cross industry and cross disciplinary concepts include the functions from supply chain in form of purchasing, production planning, warehouse management, distribution, logistics management and marketing. When all the above mentioned functions play to create value for end users they have to collaborate with each other and at time of collaboration there create an interfere between functions internally and organizational participants externally. These interferes are the main barriers for supply chain and for delivering value to end users. Role playing is a technique to enhance supply chain integration by providing a mechanism for better understanding of the roles of other participants within their supply chain, both at the inter-firm relationship level and within a firm between cooperating functions. The use of Role-Playing is perceived to be a bridge between differently oriented functions of a same supply chain. Functions of a supply chain are divided under two main headings. Hard deal with Production and Manufacturing are predominantly lying under the hard category. Hard category places emphasis on process optimization. Soft is marketing and distribution oriented firms who place more emphasis on people and behavioral issue within the exchange.

Critical Review:
Article describe new concept of hard and soft but not in so detail. Main theme is role playing but in actual role playing is something different. How it is similar to alternative simulation is not explained is not explained. What sort of barriers can be removed are not explained and the consensus developed between academia and practitioner could not be understandable.

4. SUPPLY CHAIN INTEGRATION USING A MATURITY SCALE Summary:


The purpose of this article is to develop the scale to measure the supply chain integration and to improve the performance of supply chain. The main insight gained from this article is to focus on the soft collaborative issues rather than hard technological methods to improve the performance of supply chain. But in supply chain some sort of combination of hard and soft should be applied because the performance may be negative of positive. Which types of integration lead to the greatest overall performance? To answer this question, one has to seek an understanding of the factors that contribute to an integrated supply chain. Throughout the discussions on stage-based supply chain integration, many contributory factors have been proposed by researchers to provide a typology on the subject. Contributory factors to supply chain integration are differentiated into the hard issues, such as technology, and the soft issues, such as relations and collaborative strategies. Evolving technologies coupled with a change in facilitates integration of the supply chain (Stevens, 1989), leading to better coordination of business processes within and across organizational boundaries. The maturity model presented in this article used to cover the gap which was not fulfilling in previous discussion of authors. There are two main dimensions: First model is evolutionary approach to supply chain and second the both hard and soft issues will be discussed in studies. The conclusion drawn from the comparisons is that the maturity model not only integrates ideas from the other models (e.g. a maturity progression in terms of technology, people, and processes) but also incorporate the idea of process knowledge. MPC (manufacturing planning and control) as hard system will include production, purchases, planning and computer aided designs. On the other hand collaborative strategies include internal (inside the organization) and external (among the members of supply chain) collaboration. The authors have measured the success of supply chain through performance with respect to financial and operational perspective. The results also showed that the companies which were more mature than others showed greater performance than the organizations which were less mature. The hypothesis developed by the authors which were true, organizational performance is dependent on maturity level, collaborative strategies and the interaction between the independent variables.

Critical Review:
The maturity scale was not explained in great detail like Peter Trkman in his paper. The authors did not bother to enlighten the concept. Peter Trkman explained the five stages in his article. Process integration was defined as supply synchronization, but they did not shed light on this as well. Rather it was shown only in the model. If the organizational performance can be measures through financial ratios, operations then can it be measured through behavioral aspect? Only 29 companies participate in the research by filling the questionnaires. This lack of response by the

companies makes the research less generalized in nature. Did the companies which participate in the research have same sort of supply chain? In this paper, the emphasis is made on the internal and external collaboration. How this collaboration will be achieved is out of the picture? The maturity scale was not explained in great detail like Peter Trkman in his paper. The authors did not bother to enlighten the concept. Peter Trkman explained the five stages in his article.

5. Process Management and Supply chain Integration at the Boss Corporation


Albert H. Segars, Warren J. Harkness &William J. Kettinger

Summary:
This paper was written with the intention that how Bose Corporation managed their supply chain, improves their integrated processes. Bose Corporation was forced by a Japanese automaker company to improve their processes within six months, because they were threatened with the loss of sales of their products. The company is part of an industry which emphasized technological innovations and pushes new products to the customers. Companies have to make rapid changes not only in their products but also in their technologies. The companies in this industry are customer centric. Boses functional area managers have adopted roles beyond those of designers and implementer. There were five stages which are name exploration, discovery, formalization, process thinking and process linking. In exploration stage, they employees focused on defining the issues faced by them. They did this through sharing knowing at breakfast club. In this stage, the role of the leader was investigator. The discovery stage is knowledge driven. The role of the leader was innovator. The Boses groups were made and names as process improvement networking group (PING) with supported the activities at Bose. They relied on group synergies for problem solving, total quality, networking and company meetings and formal training. In formalization stage, the company made general standardized and procedures across the functional areas. The principal activities were codifying methods and results, training of rank and file and diffusion of quality concepts with improvement activities. The role of the leader was more of the coach at this stage. They also had SDCA (standardize-do-check-act) and PDCA (plan-do-check-act). In the process thinking stage, the focus shifted towards the building enterprise wide process awareness for internal improvements. They introduced changes in processes but the speed was slow because people resist when they have come out of their comfort zone. Six major processes in which they introduces changes were time to market, integrated supply chain, market to allocation, customer service process, managing results and enabling infrastructure. The leadership acted as a change agent at this stage. In the last stage of process linking, Bose Corporation tried to amend their partnering firms; which constitute their business network. They empowered their 10 major suppliers to manage the inventory of the Bose Corporation through just in time method. The chief operating officer said that once you are one the way to improvement this is an endless journey.

Critical Review:
Author doesnt mention the initiate and maintain programs of process improvement. Manager and staff began an informal self education process which is the wastage of time. Some time it is difficult for companies to change their culture within six month because employee face basic hurdles and they do not want to change. It is not easy to change the culture and attitude of the top management. It could not be changed breakfast club and dining hall.

6. OBSTACLES TO PROCESS INTEGRATION ALONG THE SUPPLY CHAIN Summary:


Article emphasis the importance of integration of supply chain among all the members of the chain because these can influence the profitability of the company. The competing objective of firms now a day is their supply chain. In order to leave the competitor beyond many firms implement supply chain efficiently but what the obstacles they faced are discussed in article and how to overcome or cope with them. Main objective of supply chain is to add the value to end consumer and the firms involved in chain. For that purpose they have to integrate process with other firms. Term integration means the sharing or resources and information to form a unity among partners. Some time process integration can be a challenge because it requires training and preparedness, willing of competent trading partner and the modification in existing structure. As the companies realize the importance and then integrate their internal activities they tend to focus on integration with larger systems. Up till now no hard and fast definition presented but the integration is the state of collaboration among departments required to achieve unity of efforts. There are four stages and six different types of integration. First stage fragment the operations in company, Stage second limited integration among adjacent functions, Stage three integration of internal planning and Stage four deals with up and down stream integration with supplier and customers respectively. Types of integration are: Customer integration, Technology and Planning integration, Measurement integration, Relationship integration, internal integration, Customer integration, Supplier integration. SCI constitute of three dimensions: Information integration, Coordination and resources sharing and organization relationship linkage. Integration in supply chain based on internal structure of company, Prevailing economic condition and nature of relationship exist in structure. High levels of supply chain performance occur when the strategies of partner firms fit well with the strategies of overall supply chain. All partnering firms can avail many benefits just like, cost, removing safety stock and many others. But some are the obstacles which impede the process to perform well. These can reduce all the benefits of all firms in the long run. Consequences of the obstacles are longer cycle time, stock outs, bullwhip effect etc. Integration of internal process can be improved by communication, partnership, alliances and cooperation.

Critical Review:

Problems described are labeled as major problems but do not discuss about the problems relating to production, transport and inventory management. Change in the culture and structure is required to implement the supply chain but in reality it is not so simple. Long term process because first company has to integrate internal and then externally, Identification of competent is not so easy because partner have its own business and it will implement strategies according to its own objectives. It is not easy for company to deal with multiple ERP systems and how it will finace.

7. Obstacles to Supply chain integration of the performance management process in buyer supplier dyads The buyers perspective
Helena Forslund & Patrik Jonsson

Summary:
The purpose of writing this paper was to explain to what degree supplier relationship and operational tools obstacles hinder supply chain integration of the performance management (PM) process. For this purpose the authors made some hypothesis and tested these and found some interesting facts. The obstacles related to supplier relationship were lack of trust (no confidence on exchange partner), different goals and priorities (conflict of interest) and lack of parallel communication (facilitating and coordination with the partner regarding quality information). Cultural element is also included in this. Cultural collaboration is necessary for the performance management process. The operational obstacles identified by the authors were manual performance data management (gathering and registering the performance of company) and nonstandardized performance metrics (having same measurement approach). Besides these, three control factors were also included by the authors in testing the hypothesis which were company size, supply chain position of the company and importance of integrating the PM process with its suppliers. Data were gathered through survey method by devising a computerized questionnaire and sent only to the manufacturing companies of Sweden. The sample size was 705 and the response rate was 40.6%. The results of the study showed that supplier relationship (lack of trust, different goals and priorities and lack of parallel communication) has strong negative impact on the performance management process. While manual performance data management was not having strong impact on the PM process. But the performance matrices were having strong impact on the PM process.

Critical Review:
The knowledge in this paper is replica of knowledge. There is nothing new in this paper except for the methodology (survey method). In this paper, it is shown that trust will establish over a longer period of time. But how much longer period of time will it take, it is not explained. And secondly, in that longer period of time, the company will suffer losses and it is quite possible that the company wind up its operations due to losses. Updating IT systems in organizations needs huge amounts of investments, if the the size of the company is lager it will invest in that. But how it possible for the small companies to invest huge amount in IT systems.

The information provided by the respondents was not cross checked. It might have differnet results if the information was cross checked. Performance matrices was not explained in this paper, is it same as the SCOR or some changes were made in it? In this paper, only buyers perspective is included in it. Other perspective should also be included in it. More than one elements perspective should be taken to fully understand PM process integration.

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