Heidi Carin Dreyer

Trust and knowledge creation: how the dynamics of trust and absorptive capacity may affect supply chain management development projects

A case study is presented from a project where five companies representing manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer roles tried to establish supply chain management practices. The researchers had the role of project managers and facilitators, thereby acting as action researchers. Although devised and conducted in a way that seemed adequate to the participants, the project was only partly successful. Our analysis of the case shows that dynamics of institutional trust and distrust caused obstructions to the mutual learning capacities of the participating companies. If the project management had been able to attend to and manage these dynamics in a more reflective manner, the project may have been more successful. This hypothesis is substantiated through quantitative analysis of accountancy data from one participating company as well as qualitative analysis of transcripts from project meetings.

Global supply chain control systems: a conceptual framework for the global control centre

The operation of global supply chains is challenging due to the complexity in product and information flows, diversity in sites, localisation and processes and the information processing needed for coordination and control. In order to be competitive, manufacturing supply networks should strive to use information to create transparent and visible demand patterns and to create an efficient balance of supply and demand by an integrated and coordinated manufacturing planning and control system. In this article, a framework for developing global control centres (GCCs) is presented that includes a global control model, performance measurement system, information and communications technology (ICT) and organisation of roles and responsibilities. The framework has been further tested in a company for realising a GCC. The main challenges for realisation include control issues, information handling and ICT and management of change and organisational resistance.

Sales and operations planning: responding to the needs of industrial food producers

This paper investigates sales and operations planning (S&OP) at four Scandinavian industrial food producers in order to explore how the use of S&OP might help leaders to deal with the challenges set by the planning environment. Variables connected to the product and market, e.g. frequency of new product development, customer service levels and supply uncertainty, were identified as particularly critical for the S&OP process. It was found that there is great potential for S&OP in the food industry, foremost to cope with the imbalances between demand and supply and to create prerequisites for a stable production process.

Lean Six Sigma and environmental sustainability: the case of a Norwegian dairy producer

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the application of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in the continuous process industry, taking an insight into the food processing industry; and to evaluate the impact of LSS on environmental sustainability. The authors present observations and experiences from the application of LSS at a Norwegian dairy producer, with the aim of bringing out pertinent factors and useful insights that help us to understand how LSS can contribute toward greater environmental sustainability in this industry type, something that is so far lacking in the extant literature. Design/methodology/approach The authors adopt a single, longitudinal field study approach as we observe an entire cycle of the VSM-DMAIC (value stream mapping-define, measure, analyze, improve and control) LSS process, which evolved over a six-month period at the dairy. Findings The authors highlight some of the important elements that should be considered when using LSS as a contributor toward greater environmental sustainability in fresh-food supply chains. The authors also present some of the specific outcomes and key success criteria that became apparent to the implementation team following the deployment of the VSM-DMAIC approach. Originality/value The authors demonstrate how LSS can be applied in the food processing industry as a contributor to greater environmental sustainability. The authors also make useful reflections regarding the success criteria that can be used by researchers and practitioners for the effective deployment of such an approach, particularly in the continuous process industry.

Contingency between S & OP design and planning environment

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand how companies design sales and operations planning (SO further studies need to explore the effect of the alignment of S&OP and the PE on the planning performance. Originality/value – In the literature, S&OP is presented as a generic process with a strict formal design that is equal for all companies. The study provides insights into how companies adjust S&OP according to the PE.

Principles for Real-Time, Integrated Supply Chain Control: An Example from Distribution of Pharmaceuticals

This paper investigates how to control an integrated supply chain based on demand-driven principles and sharing of real time information. A set of principles to support a unified supply chain control model is proposed based on theory and previous and ongoing research and illustrated in a case example from the pharmaceutical industry. Essential elements include application of pull-based control principles, automated decision support, advanced visualisation, and automated replenishment concepts. Expected effects include improvement of supply chain speed and reliability, and reduced resource consumption. However, implementation challenges associated with financial, political and trust issues in supply chain relationships remain.

Supply chain strategies for speciality foods: a Norwegian case study

Abstract Despite strong market interest in speciality foods, producers find market access and distribution challenging. This exploratory research includes a literature review and five case studies of supply chains relating to shellfish, cheese, meat, potato and miscellaneous speciality foods in the mid-Norway region. The study identifies key supply chain configuration parameters from the extant literature, and these are used to analyse the cases. The study makes three main contributions to the literature: an analytical framework for analysing the supply chain characteristics of speciality foods; important supply chain factors for accessing the conventional food supply chain; and five propositions for improving market access. We argue that the speciality foods supply chain should be configured according to these propositions to ensure responsiveness to customer needs and to strengthen market access.

ERP Support for Lean Production

In the traditional sense, IT has often been viewed as a contributor to waste within lean production. However, as the business world changes and competition from low-cost countries increases, new models must be developed which deliver competitive advantage by combining contemporary technological advances with the lean paradigm. By applying an action research approach, this paper evaluates the support functionality of ERP systems for lean production. We address the fundamental principles of lean production in comparison with the functionality and modules of a contemporary ERP system.

The Operations Excellence Audit Sheet

This paper presents an Operations Excellence (OE) audit sheet that enables companies to get a quick assessment of their operations performance. The sheet is based on well known assessment schemes within lean manufacturing developed by Godson, Kobayashi, and Schonberger. These three schemes are combined and enhanced in the audit sheet, which defines 15 areas of operations excellence. The audit sheet is a powerful tool to assess the current state and to plan the future state of enterprise operations. It has been successfully applied in several enterprise reengineering projects to provide decision-makers with sufficient input to identify improvement targets and revise the current operations strategy. The use of the audit sheet is demonstrated in two case examples from Norwegian industry, and some insights are given regarding the sheet’s applicability for different types of manufacturing processes.

Critical Aspects of Information and Communication Technology in Vendor Managed Inventory

The use of Information and communication technology (ICT) in supply chain collaboration has received substantial attention among researchers and practitioners. The multiple aspects of ICT offer a wide selection of research and application arenas. This paper discusses information sharing and takes a particular focus on the level of data integration when ICT is applied to support the replenishment process based on a Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) principle, i.e. when the supplier is responsible for the replenishment process on the customer’s behalf [1]. The findings conclude that it is not the capabilities of the computer technology and applications available that limit the level of data integration in the collaboration program. The most important limitation is the decision makers’ competence and confidence in information sharing and computer systems, and the potential benefits these represent. The research methodology applied is a comparative case study where level of data integration and level of data utilization was studied in five cases of VMI collaboration.