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.

The implications of blockchain-coordinated information sharing within a supply chain: A simulation study

The profitability of a supply chain(SC)is proportional to the stability of all its stakeholders as well as their consistent information sharing with an effective and efficient communication mechanism.Various inefficiencies,such as the bullwhip effect(BWE)and product unavailability,may be caused by a lack of coordination in an SC.The importance of sharing consumer demand has been quantified by comprehensive studies under the assumption that all SC participants will access the same information.However,only a few studies have studied the effect of minimal coordination or limited visibility of information while considering their effect on the overall efficiency of an SC.This work primarily leverages blockchain technology(BCT)to create a simulation model.To do this,an SC BWE-based model is initially developed.Following that,a blockchain-based robust information sharing system is simulated.Furthermore,information sharing is challenging,and SC stakeholders may not really trust each other and hence be reluctant to share sensitive information.Considering that,this paper propose an improved proof-ofauthority(PoA)consensus algorithm that will increase trust in a decentralized SC model.Multiple experiments are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach,and the simulation results clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of information sharing in a supply chain via blockchain,as well as that trust between partners tends to increase overall SC efficiency and reduce BWE.