Collaborative Supply Chain Management: A Critical Redesigning Factor

In improving the competitiveness of business organi sa tion in the 21st century, minimising cost and increasing productivity are no lon ger factors that could promise the success. The changes in customer trends whic h focusing more on product or service customising, high quality and short delive ry times are additional crucial factors that organisation should be aware of. T hese factors have direct relations on how the management could utilise the capab ility of its supply chain management (SCM). The importance of SCM in organisati on specifically to manufacturer is to play a vital role in managing the flow of material and information along the chain from suppliers to customers. In a trad itional way, SCM is mainly manage by the production department in organisation b ut with the advancement in information technology, resulted the changes in worki ng environment. One of the ways that could be implemented in decision making p rocess in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the decision is t hrough collaborative environment. Due to this situation, there is a need to rede sign the existing SCM in order to optimise its capability and functionality in t he way to ensure the organisation competitiveness is sustainable. A minor or ma jor alignment to SCM business processes should be done in order to streamline th e flow of information, which could also affect the flow of materials. Factors s uch as SCM operational, structural and even its managerial are among the issues that are critical in redesigning its business process. Each of these factors has its own attributes such as lead-times, complexity, frequency and organisationa l setting that could lead in improving organisational competitiveness. In additi on, by identifying these factors, it would help the management to plan and desig n the collaborative SCM that would effectively correspond to the changes in busi ness and customer trends. The intention of the paper is to promote a list of fa ctors and attributes, which are critical in redesigning an existing SCM in order to shift its environment to become collaborative SCM. By utilising these facto rs and attributes, a model for redesigning SCM into collaborative environment is currently developed by the author and will be used in the next stage of his res earch.

In improving the competitiveness of business organi sa tion in the 21st century, minimising cost and increasing productivity are no lon ger factors that could promise the success. The changes in customer trends whic h focusing more on product or service customising, high quality and short delive ry times are additional crucial factors that organisation should be aware of. T hese factors have direct relations on how the management could utilise the capab ility of its supply chain management (SCM). The imp...