Milind Kumar Sharma

Performance measurement of supply chain management: A balanced scorecard approach

This paper develops a balanced scorecard for supply chain management (SCM) that measures and evaluates day-to-day business operations from following four perspectives: finance, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth. Balanced scorecard has been developed based on extensive review of literature on SCM performance measures, supported by three case studies, each illustrating ways in which BSC was developed and applied in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in India. The paper further suggests that a balanced SCM scorecard can be the foundation for a strategic SCM system provided that certain development guidelines are properly followed, appropriate metrics are evaluated, and key implementation obstacles are overcome. The balanced scorecard developed in this paper provides a useful guidance for the practical managers in evaluation and measuring of SCM in a balanced way and proposes a balanced performance measurement system to map and analyze supply chains. While suggesting balanced scorecard, different SCM performance metrics have been reviewed and distributed into four perspectives. This helps managers to evaluate SCM performance in a much-balanced way from all angles of business.

An integrated BSC‐AHP approach for supply chain management evaluation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated balanced scorecard (BSC) analytical hierarchy process (AHP) approach for supply chain management (SCM) evaluation. It aims to measure SCM performance from the following four perspectives: finance, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth.Design/methodology/approach – The BSC is developed in the paper based on an extensive review of literature on SCM performance measures, supported by AHP analysis.Findings – The paper develops a BSC for SCM evaluation and proposes a method to prioritize the different performance levels in any organization using AHP methodology. It also suggests from the view of different decision levels and overall performance measurement that is the best BSC perspective.Practical implications – The integrated BSC‐AHP methodology developed in this paper provides useful guidance for practical managers in evaluation and measuring of SCM in a balanced way.Originality/value – This paper proposes a balanced perf...

Lean manufacturing in developing countries: evidence from Indian SMEs

India is emerging as a new manufacturing destination and many companies are seeking ways to increase the value of their products and services by eliminating unnecessary processes and wasteful practices from their production systems. The powerful lean manufacturing approach that has proved successful as an operations model in developed economies, as well as in some large Indian companies, is now increasingly being recognised by the small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this research is to investigate the adoption of lean production in India and to examine the lean practices deployed by the SMEs. The case study methodology was utilised and this article presents the findings of four SMEs in India that have implemented lean strategy to drive significant improvement in manufacturing performance.

Practice of information systems

Purpose – To provide the outcome of information system (IS) related practice survey designed to identify current trends in Indian small and medium enterprises (SMEs).Design/methodology/approach – This research is exploratory in nature, a survey methodology is used for study and the focus of study is cross‐sectional. Two companies have been selected for detailed case studies. The objective of the study was to become more familiar through survey and information collected to one point in time. The methodology was based on a questionnaire survey and personal interviews.Findings – The outcomes, based on a survey of 210 SMEs, reveal that though SMEs understand and acknowledge the importance of the IS in day‐to‐day operations management in the present dynamic and heterogeneous business environment but these are yet to implement, operate and exploit it fully in a formal and professional manner so as to enable them to derive maximum business gains out of it. SMEs are not found equipped adequately with the IS resou...

Practice of performance measurement: experience from Indian SMEs

The findings in the paper are reported on the basis of the outcome of sponsored research project on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Effective Performance Measurement System (PMS) for organisation is a key factor for success in todays competitive globalised market. In the era of globalisation and outsourcing, SMEs understand and acknowledge the importance of the performance measurement system in day-to-day business operations but may not able to pay serious attention to it. This paper presents results of a survey of Indian SMEs whilst addressing this issue. The study included SMEs from three western states of India covering the manufacturing, high tech engineering, finance, packaging, and distribution sector. Responses from 147 SMEs are analysed for various issues related to performance measurement system.

An application of the integrated AHP-PGP model for performance measurement of supply chain management

The performance measurement problem has gained great attention in business and operations management literature. The first objective of this study is to determine the required performance measures and to develop a model for performance evaluation, based on these selected measures using analytical hierarchy process (AHP) methodology. The second objective is to explain how an integrated AHP-PGP (pre-emptive goal programming) model can be used in performance measurement while optimising the overall performance. An integration of AHP and multi-objective PGP is used to consider both quantitative and qualitative performance measures in optimising the overall performance of the system. The integrated model is presented with a real-world application using source data provided by a survey conducted in India. Findings demonstrate that the integrated AHP-PGP model can be useful to all supply chain industries in their day-to-day performance measurement decisions.

Performance measurement in automated manufacturing

Purpose – Todays customer‐focused paradigm of business environment puts tremendous pressures of quality, delivery, dependability, flexibility and cost on the manufacturing organisation. Automatic manufacturing systems offer several advantages and are increasingly being adopted as a strategy to improve the performance of manufacturing organisations. Automatic manufacturing systems are highly sophisticated and expensive, and it is therefore important to maximise their productivity. Yet, one can improve only what one can measure. Performance measurement is the key to improving performance, and is a prerequisite to diagnosing, trouble‐shooting and improving the production system. Accordingly, performance measurement has been attracting increasing attention over the last two decades, and several frameworks have emerged for the design, review, evaluation and improvement of performance measurement systems for businesses and manufacturing organizations. The performance measurement, monitoring and continuous prod...

Prioritising the alternatives for flexibility in supply chains

In the era of globalisation, requirements of customer are changing very fast. Product life cycle is shortening. Organisations are under pressure to reduce cost, delivery time, improve reliability of product by changing their process continuously. Supply chain management has become integral part of strategy for most of the organisations in meeting these challenges. Success of supply chain depends on effective strategy for improving coordination among the members to make it more responsive for market needs by optimising available resources. In this context, supply chain needs to be flexible. Based on the literature, it is observed that overall flexibility of supply chain depends upon suppliers’ flexibility, manufacturing flexibility and customers’ flexibility. Other sub-factors affecting flexibility may be product and process design, capacity planning, logistic management, suppliers’ capabilities and nature of customers. This study has tried to prioritise flexibility alternatives by analytical network process approach. Input for this analysis is based on four Indian case studies, which are briefly described in the paper. These organisations had been very active in improving flexibility of their supply chains. Findings of the study report that organisations should give top priority for improving manufacturing flexibility followed by customers’ and suppliers’ flexibility.

Performance measurement system: case studies from SMEs in India

Performance Measurement System (PMS) is underdeveloped and underresearched in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). It has emerged as a vital decision support tool at the strategic management level in SMEs in the developing nations. This research explores and examines the PMS development through four select case studies in India. Another purpose of this study is to provide some preliminary insights on why SMEs adopt the PMS. It also aims to identify critical issues that would contribute to the effective performance measurement function in Indian SMEs. This research is exploratory in nature; a case study methodology is used for the research. Based on four case studies from diverse SMEs from three different states of western India, the paper presents four important issues – PMS strategy, competitive priorities, benefits observed/perceived by effective management of PMS function and barriers observed in implementing PMS practices. Based on the analysis of the case studies, several propositions as recommendations for effective PMS development in Indian SMEs are proposed.

Performance measurement of information systems in small and medium sized enterprises: a strategic perspective

In todays era of globalisation, managing information systems (IS) for operations management has become one of the key strategic issues for increasing organisational effectiveness and optimal achievement of goals. The globalised competition and business supply chain management has forced many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India to adopt IS practices to manage their day-to-day business operations. Most of the SMEs realised the need of an efficient and effective IS as a strategic weapon for competing in the globalised market. One of the important issues for SMEs is to follow the proficient practices for business operations and management of IS that can provide an efficient and effective IS performance. This article presents the findings of a survey study of leading SMEs operational in the three states of the western part of India. The survey focused on the prevalent practices for management of IS and their relationship with IS performance measurement. The study reduced these routine IS management practices of SMEs to a smaller set of constructs and then related these constructs to IS performance measurement. The results show that many constructs were correlated with the IS performance and that some constructs were found to adversely affect the IS performance. The correlated constructs can help SMEs to improve the IS performance by following proper IS management practices. Therefore, considering the importance of correlated constructs with IS performance, an attempt has been made to discuss the implications of IS practices on its performance. Finally, concluding remarks and directions for future research are presented.