Taco van der Vaart

Opportunities and realities of supply chain integration: the case of food manufacturers

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to investigate the limitations and barriers for supply chain integration that food manufacturers experience and to highlight their planning and scheduling problems. Possible ways to cope with these are offered.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is theoretical/conceptual in nature: the findings are illustrated in an explorative case study.Findings – It is often suggested that food supply chains are typical for what can be achieved in supply chain management. This paper challenges this belief by investigating the possibilities and limitations for supply chain integration for food manufacturers. The authors argue that a combination of typical food characteristics and the use of shared resources limit the possibility for integration, while uncertainties and complex business conditions increase the need for integration. In a case study, the paper explores alternatives to cope with that situation.Research limitations/implications – The paper is based on previous empiri...

Does ICT influence supply chain management and performance? A review of survey-based research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review and classify survey‐based research connecting information and communication technology (ICT), supply chain management (SCM), and supply chain (SC) performance. The review evaluates present empirical results and aims at detecting explanations for similarities and differences in reported findings in the current literature.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based upon a structured literature review of the major journals in the fields of operations management, logistics, and information systems.Findings – The point of departure in this paper is the possible inconsistency in reported findings within this field of research. The paper finds that measurements and constructs in all three major variables (ICT, SCM, SC performance) are different and often incomparable, and contextual factors are not systematically considered. Surprisingly, despite these differences, the papers reviewed show that generally, there is a positive direct or indirect effect of ICT o...

Integrative practices in hospitals and their impact on patient flow

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to investigate which integrative planning and control practices are used in hospitals and what their effects are on patient flow.Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on a three‐hospital multi‐case study carried out in The Netherlands. The main findings are based on over 40 in‐depth interviews and the analysis of detailed patient flow data. The analysis of the flow data is used to explore the effects of integrative practices on lead times and patient flow.Findings – Based on the various patient groups examined in the different hospitals, four integrative practices stand out: sharing waiting list information, sharing planning information, cross‐departmental planning, and combining appointments. In line with earlier studies, the overall level of integration in hospitals was found to be low. However, patient flow performance is significantly better in those hospitals that employ more of the above‐mentioned integrative practices.Research limitations/implications –...

A Critical Discussion on the Theoretical and Methodological Advancements in Supply Chain Integration Research

Integration is one of the central themes in supply chain management research. This paper explores and discusses the constructs and methods used in empirical research with respect to supply chain integration. A large part of the empirical research on integration is characterized by the use of constructs and scales that measure limited, partial aspects of integration. Furthermore, it appears that contextual factors are hardly addressed. This paper develops a broader construct of supply chain integration and sketches the advantages of a multi-case study approach as an alternative methodology to survey research to develop our knowledge of supply chain integration and its antecedents.

Scheduling and order acceptance for the customised stochastic lot scheduling problem

This paper develops and analyses several customer order acceptance policies to achieve high bottleneck utilisation for the customised stochastic lot scheduling problem (CSLSP) with large setups and strict order due dates. To compare the policies, simulation is used as the main tool, due to the complicated nature of the problem. Also, approximate upper and lower bounds for the utilisation are provided. It is shown that a greedy approach to accept orders performs poorly in that it achieves low utilisation for high customer order arrival rates. Rather, good acceptance and scheduling policies for the CSLSP should sometimes reject orders to create slack even when there is room in the schedule to start new production runs. We show that intelligently introducing slack enables the achievement of high utilisation. One particularly simple policy is to restrict the number of families present.

The different impact of inter-organizational and intra-organizational ICT on supply chain performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to clarify the different roles of intra- and inter-organizational information and communication technology (ICT) in improving supply chain performance. It proposes different mechanisms to explain how intra- and inter-organizational ICT interact with supply chain integration, and contribute to supply chain performance. The main research question is: What are the distinctive roles of inter-organizational ICT and intra-organizational ICT in improving supply chain performance? Design/methodology/approach – The paper builds on original survey data of 320 Chinese manufacturing firms gathered in China. Findings – The paper shows that inter-organizational ICT has a positive direct relationship with supply chain performance and this relationship is mediated by supply chain integration. Intra-organizational ICT has no direct relationship with supply chain performance. However, intra-organizational ICT moderates the effect of the supply chain integration on supply chain perform...

Perceptions of technology uncertainty and the consequences for performance in buyer-supplier relationships

In this paper, we investigate how buyers’ and suppliers’ distinct perceptions of technology uncertainty affect the relationship between communication frequency and supplier performance. Information processing theory suggests that a fit is desirable between perceived environmental uncertainty and the communication processes between organisations. However, if partners in a buyer-supplier relationship do not concur on the high level of technology uncertainty, it is highly questionable whether increased communication will be effective in increasing supplier performance. Using dyadic data from 86 buyer-supplier relationships, involving 388 respondents, we found that communication frequency was positively related to supplier performance only when both suppliers and buyers perceived high levels of technology uncertainty. When buyers perceived greater technology uncertainty than their suppliers, communication frequency was negatively related to supplier performance. The findings in this study show that it is important to take the distinct perceptions of buyers and suppliers of technology uncertainty into account when assessing the effects of communication frequency. It appears that increased communication is only effective when both parties acknowledge the need to communicate, and can be unfavourable when only one party sees the benefits of it.

A critical review of surveys in supply chain integration research

Over the past decade, one of the main themes in the supply chain management literature has been integration as a key factor in achieving improvements (e.g., Tan et al., 1999; Romano, 2003). Many authors agree that integrative practices and a high level of integration have a positive impact on corporate and supply chain performance.

Multilevel issues in supply chain management

This study focuses on possible contributions of the multilevel approach to research in supply chain management. Supply chains consist of multiple organizations comprising different departments with people who are interacting inside and across organizations. Factors at different levels may thus influence chain performance in different ways. What is more, the multilevel approach recognizes that concepts may have different or similar meanings at different levels. Finally, the multilevel approach makes nested data structures, for instance data of ten purchasers nested in a purchasing department, more apparent and analyzable. A multilevel approach to SCM may contribute to this field in at least three ways: (1) conceptually/theoretically, (2) in a methodological sense and (3) in an analytical way. In this paper we will elaborate on these issues and we will apply them to our own research on human behavior in supply chains.

On the Modelling of the Adoption of Process Innovations

An alternative view on the modelling of diffusion processes of process innovations has been introduced by Nooteboom (1989). The basic idea in that paper is to model the process of adoption of process innovations as a ‘gambling model’ with odds in favour depending on expected returns and odds against depending on risk. In this paper it is investigated under which theoretical conditions posed on the expected return function the usual adopted assumptions Nooteboom (1989) with respect to the parameters of the gambling model are in fact reasonable. It is shown that only under certain conditions the assumptions made on the gambling model are true on theoretical grounds. In all other cases a nonexample shows that the results as mentioned in literature are in general not true.An alternative view on the modelling of diffusion processesof process innovations has been introduced by Nooteboom (1989). Thebasic idea in that paper is to model the process of adoption ofprocess innovations as a ‘gambling model’ with odds in favourdepending on expected returns and odds against depending on risk.In this paper it is investigated under which theoretical conditions posed on the expected return function the usual adopted assumptions Nooteboom (1989) with respect to the parameters of the gambling model are in fact reasonable. It is shown that only under certainconditions the assumptions made on the gambling model are true ontheoretical grounds. In all other cases a nonexample shows that theresults as mentioned in literature are in general not true.