Collaboration planning in a supply chain

Abstract

PurposeTo analyze how e‐collaboration tools affect different partners along the supply chain, and to categorize firms according to their level of collaboration planning within a supply chain environment.Design/methodology/approachFirst, a field study, which focuses on one large telecommunications equipment manufacturer and a few strategic first‐tier suppliers, provides the basis to fully understand the e‐collaboration methods and the various issues and concerns of the different members of the supply chain. It is followed by an electronic survey conducted with 53 firms worldwide acting in the same supply chain, which constitutes the second phase of the study.FindingsDifferent roles may be attributed to collaboration tools such as facilitating access to information, which affects knowledge creation capabilities, and assisting in the design of flexible supply chains. Furthermore, three separate groups with different levels and types of collaboration planning were identified. These groups appropriately represent the telecommunications equipment supply chain, where firms are either deeply involved in supply chain collaboration or very minimally concerned by it.Research limitations/implicationsBy focusing on the initial stage of CPFR, we might overlook some important links with the other two stages of CPFR. However, with a more focused approach, we were able to obtain detailed information on the collaborative planning stage. A second limitation is the selection of one specific supply chain, which makes the generalization to other supply chains difficult.Practical implicationsUnderstanding the role of CPFR in their supply chain and, more importantly, the role of collaboration planning in developing a network of partners.Originality/valueThis paper looks at how collaboration is planned, through CPFR actions, between members of a supply chain.

Coordinating collaboration in contractually different complex construction projects

“…The parties focus on protecting their own profits, thus creating distrust between each other. (Barlow,4 2000) This study regards collaborative work as something to be planned and coordinated (Cassivi, 2006), but also acknowledges the possible spontaneous development of relationships between the parties in the course of working together (Bresnen and Marshall, 2002). Thus, collaborative work is seen as a process (Boddy et al, 2000).…”

“…The easy access to information was regarded to help collaborative work, which corroborates the earlier similar findings (cf. Barratt, 2004;Cassivi, 2006;Lönngren et al, 2010). Inter-organizational meetings were also arranged throughout the project to make decisions collaboratively.…”

A Systematic Literature Review of Collaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment

“…Furthermore, it develops a scorecard to track SC metrics and establishes incentives (Barratt and Oliveira, 2001, Danese et al, 2004, Ireland, 2005, Simatupang and Sridharan, 2005, Cassivi, 2006, Danese, 2007, D'Aubeterre et al, 2008. Objectives and requirements of all trading partners are discussed and clarified (Caridi et al, 2005, Cassivi, 2006, and a joint business plan is created to identify the significant events that affect supply and demand in the planning period (e.g., promotion, product introductions), logistics parameters (e.g., safety stocks, frozen periods, delivery dates, order minimums and multiples), the information to be exchanged and the exception criteria to resolve planning variances between the trading partner's demand forecasts (Ireland, 2005, Simatupang and Sridharan, 2005, Cassivi, 2006, Danese, 2007, Chang and Wang, 2008, Shu et al, 2010. During the forecasting process, the volumes of sales are forecast, the differences among the trading partners' volumes (exceptions) are discussed and a mutually agreed sales forecast is created.…”

“…Some authors refer to CPFR as an evolution from VMI and CR/CRP (Barratt and Oliveira, 2001, Attaran, 2004, Cassivi, 2006, Thron et al, 2006, Attaran and Attaran, 2007, Danese, 2011 as CPFR captures the advantages of such programmes while adding the collaborative mechanism to facilitate information exchange in a multi-tiered SC (Cassivi, 2006). Some retailers discontinued their VMI project because they were unsatisfied with the results, mainly due to the lack of collaboration, the forecasting ability of the suppliers and the vendors' inability to address product promotions (Sari, 2008b, Yuan et al, 2010.…”

“…Originally built as an inter-industry standard, it was designed to move beyond the shortcomings of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) protocols and the Efficient Consumer Response Movement (ECR), incorporating most of the techniques used to integrate SC partners under the initiatives of Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) and Continuous Replenishment (CR) (Stank et al, 1999, Barratt and Oliveira, 2001, Larsen et al, 2003, Seifert, 2003, Fliedner, 2003, Attaran, 2004, Cassivi, 2006, Thron et al, 2006, Attaran and Attaran, 2007, Danese, 2007, 2011. The first CPFR pilot project was conducted by Wall-Mart and Warner-Lambert with the goal of being highly responsive to customer demand (Sherman, 1998, Barratt and Oliveira, 2001, Fliedner, 2003, Larsen et al, 2003, Attaran, 2004, Danese, 2006b, Poler et al, 2008, Derrouiche et al, 2008, Burnette, 2010, Lapide, 2010, Ramanathan and Gunasekaran, 2014.…”