Simon Templar

The relationships between supply chain and firm performance

Purpose – Supply chains directly influence the differentiation and cost of a firms products and services and its exposure to risk. The purpose of this paper is to use secondary financial data to explore the relationship between supply chain and firm performance by developing a unified proxy for supply chain performance.Design/methodology/approach – Established econometric techniques were used to validate the proxy using a sample frame comprising the annual reports of 117 publicly traded UK manufacturing firms from the period 1995 to 2004.Findings – Increases in change in the proxy lead to an increase in change in the rate of return on capital employed and a change in the rate of cash‐to‐cash cycle length, both of which are traditional measures of improved supply chain management. Moreover, as the rate of change of the proxy increases, so does enterprise value at a level that is statistically significant, indicating that improving supply chain management practices has a positive impact upon improved firm ...

Inter-organisational costing approaches - the inhibiting factors

– The purpose of this paper is to highlight the limitations of current accounting practices in an inter‐organisational context; introduce contemporary costing approaches used in inter‐organisational costing (IOC) programmes; and identify the inhibitors of successful implementation of IOC programmes., – The paper uses a structured review of empirical and theoretical literature., – Traditional accounting practices do not adequately fulfil their role in the inter‐organisational context. Contemporary accounting practices overcome only some limitations of traditional accounting practices. The paper uncovers part of the complexity surrounding the implementation of IOC programmes and suggests that we are dealing with a broad inter‐disciplinary phenomenon., – Conclusions are drawn on a conceptual level and further empirical investigation is encouraged., – The paper raises the awareness of the complexity surrounding the implementation of IOC programmes. The broad set of inhibiting factors could be effectively used by managers to assess the readiness of organisations involved in implementation of IOC programmes., – This research is the first that systematically addresses the problem of inhibitors in the implementation of IOC programmes. The broad scope of the paper sets the foundations for more focused research into specific inhibiting factors.

Towards the integrative supply chain model

Although empirical studies show that supply chain integration is associated with high levels of business and operational performance, some authors argue that there is no need to pursue total end-to-end supply chain integration and different or relationship-by-relationship approaches are needed. This paper introduces the first step in the development of the business process model, which might facilitate the building of closer relationships among businesses and therefore endorse supply chain integration. The aim of this paper is to determine whether there is some generic set of supply chain processes, which support material and information flows in a dyadic relationship. Through the literature review, two supply chain process frameworks (SCPFs), namely supply chain operations reference and global supply chain forum, have been identified together with nine evaluation criteria. Evaluation results provide evidence on the generic set of supply chain processes together with the insights into specific advantages and common shortcomings of these two widely recognised SCPFs.

The enablers and inhibitors of intermodal rail freight between Asia and Europe

Contemporary modes in intercontinental transportation are sea and air freight. The geographical connection of Eurasia additionally enables rail freight via the Eurasian landbridge. This transport concept reduces lead time compared to sea freight at lower cost than air or sea-air freight and hence fits into a strategic niche between established modes. These characteristics facilitate developments in supply chain management like increasing transport distances and continuous cost reduction together with relatively new trends (smaller, but more frequent shipments, flexibility and sustainability) that are only partly satisfied by contemporary modes. At this moment, the Eurasian landbridge is at an immature state, used by few shippers. This paper intends to identify factors that enable, respectively, inhibit Eurasian rail freight and understand how inhibitors can be overcome. The research based on case studies reviewing literature and conducting interviews to investigate individual landbridge routes. Besides providing secondary data, literature identified stakeholders and thus served as input for 24 semi-structured interviews to gather primary data. Both data streams were then combined to reveal the current attractiveness of Eurasian rail freight. A future outlook in the closing section aims at stimulating further research and thinking in order to create a viable alternative for global supply chain management.

Scoping the Contextual Issues that Influence Shrinkage Measurement

Senior Research Fellow Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield University. Bedfordshire. MK43 0AL United Kingdom. Telephone +44 1234 751122 Fax +44 1234 751712 Email: Paul.chapman@cranfield.ac.uk Simon Templar Teaching Fellow Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield University.

Methods for assessing time and cost in a food supply chain

: This chapter presents an overview of supply chain time – cost mapping (SCTCM), a framework which any organization can deploy which will enable them to gain greater visibility of both time and cost in their supply chain operation. The framework is underpinned by incorporating the tools and techniques of time-based process mapping and activity-based costing. It provides an organization with a holistic perspective of supply chain time and costs associated with a single product. The SCTCM can be used to identify and evaluate waste (non-value adding time) and provide additional insight into the costs associated with the supply chain activities consumed by a product. The framework provides a base case which can then be used to measure the impact of different improvement scenarios in terms of changes in total time and cost and highlights the impact of trade-offs between the individual activities that make up the supply chain process for a given product.