Supply Chains

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1. Supply Chain Management

1.1 Supply Chain Management Case Studies

In the next two sections we will look at two case studies, from the automotive and medical industries, on the impact of Information and Communication Technologies on supply chain management adapted from Fretwell and Strandquest (2002).

Supply Chain Collaboration – Ford & GM

Ford Motor Company has used web collaboration technology to design more fuel efficient cars. This was not achieved by simply allowing car 'designers' to communicate online but rather by linking engineers and suppliers working in multiple locations during a vehicle's design phase. This enables Ford to find out how a proposed design change would affect a vehicle's fuel consumption. This has allowed the elimination of the analysis process that previously took three days to complete and reducing a vehicle's development costs from $20 million to $15 million. Similarly, a General Motors initiative provided product teams around the world with simultaneous online access to vehicle information. This has allowed cutting vehicle development time from 42 to 24 months.

Multi-Company Supply Chain Collaboration - C-Medica

C-Medica is one of the collaborative information management sites in the new medical devices sector. The main purpose of C-Media is to provide information necessary to enhance speed to market. Collaborators, including equipment manufacturers and suppliers, use the c-Medica site to share CAD files and technical data, access databases, conduct meetings, manage project milestones as well as follow legislative guidelines for medical equipment. The site also gives users access to medical industry news, discussion forums, and procurement offerings from a wide variety of suppliers.

Before C-Medica, there were limited opportunities for real-time information sharing and data exchange. However, C-Media provided an information portal that brought business partners together in a centralised, neutral workspace. This had a positive impact on reducing costs and development times, increasing efficiency, and simplifying the complex innovation initiatives. The C-Medica case study shows that collaboration can significantly benefit individual companies as well as an entire industry sector through connecting its designers, manufacturers and suppliers throughout the supply chain management process.

Accordingly information and communication technologies have enabled sophisticated collaboration between organisations through:

• Expanding access to content
• Creating multiple connections between the right parties
• Simplifying work processes internally and to external enterprises
• Accelerating decision making

However, information and communication technologies based collaboration is not a guaranteed success.

Organisations need to understand that success is an evolutionary process that unfolds within the context of business processes. Therefore, success in collaboration is highly dependent on:

• Ability of organisations to support and embrace cultural change
• Thorough understanding of the roles, relationships, objectives and needs of the collaborating parties
• An environment that incorporates and builds on those insights

1.2 Challenges to Supply Chain Management Collaboration

An information and communication technologies based collaboration initiative may expect to face four categories of 'relationship' challenges as follows:

• establishing what the benefits of collaboration might be and how they might be achieved is in itself quite a difficult collaborative task that needs to be accomplished
• with each potential party requiring a quantifiable business case before proceeding
• threat of losing valuable trade secrets or other forms of intellectual property poses another potential barrier to collaboration
• cultural diversity of organisations involved may prove a barrier to close collaboration
• technical diversity of potential software solutions, standards and platforms may prove an obstacle, since each organisation will in general seek to minimise their switching costs to a new system

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Reference(s)
	Book		Chaffey, D. & Wood, S. (2004) Business Information Management: Improving Performance Using Information Systems. Financial Times Prentice Hall: United Kingdom (UK), England, Essex, Harlow. [ISBN: 9780273686552]. [Available on: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3yZ6vdF].
	Document		Fretwell, L. & Strandquest, B. (2002) Online Collaboration: The Next Wave of Internet Innovation [Document]. Version. Page(s): 39-45. Cap Gemini Ernst & Young - Center for Business Innovation: France, Île-de-France, Paris, Rue de Tilsitt. [Accessed on: 2013-01-25]. [Available on: StudyLib: https://studylib.net/doc/8371137/www.cbi.cgey.com].
	Book		Pearlson, K. E. & Saunders, C. S. (2004) Managing and Using Information Systems: A Strategic Approach. 5th Edition. John Wiley & Sons: United States of America (USA), New York (NY). [ISBN: 9781118281734]. [Available on: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3TMqOTZ].

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Reference (or cite) Article
	Kahlon, R. S. (2013) Supply Chains [Online]. dkode: United Kingdom, England, London. [Published on: 2013-01-25]. [Article ID: RSK666-0000074]. [Available on: dkode | Ravi - https://ravi.dkode.co/2013/01/impact-on-supply-chains.html].

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