Integrated E-Enterprise Supply Chain Security Design and Implementation

Web technology has enabled many organizations to form an e-enterprise for effective communicating, collaborating, and information sharing. To gain competitive advantages, it is necessary for e-enterprises to integrate the entire lines of business operations and critical business data with external supply chain participants over the Web, which may introduce significant security risks to the organizations’ critical assets and infrastructures. This chapter reports a case study of e-service security design and implementation at a leading U.S. company. First, the chapter reviews security concerns and challenges in front-end e-business and back-end supply chain operations. This is followed by the analysis of the company’s e-service and its security problems. The case then presents an integrated e-enterprise security methodology to guide the company for meeting its security needs. The results of this case study provides security professionals with practical steps and sustainable solutions for tackling the unique security challenges arising in an open, unbounded e-enterprise supply chain environment.

Smart Integrated Operations for High Risk and Technologically Complex Assets

As the oil and gas (O&G) production business on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) stepped into a new development path termed the “3rd efficiency leap” since the year 2003, Smart Integrated eOperations is widely acknowledged as the way forward to deal with this inevitable change. Smart Integrated eOperations appears to be re-engineering the industry structure. Within the next few years, new policies and practices will establish operational networks and collaborative partnerships between O&G producers and the service-support-supply market through active integration for effective and efficient management of offshore production assets. Adaptation of Smart Integrated eOperations is largely stimulated by rapid development in application technology, large-scale information and communication (ICT) platforms, and the foreseen substantial commercial benefits of well-integrated collaborative industry infrastructure. This is a very novel macro-scale program, and the Norwegian O&G Industry has already launched major initiatives in this regard to realize its fully functional status by the year 2010. The sophisticated information and communication platform called Secure Oil Information Link (SOIL) and Onshore support centres (e.g., ODC and OOC of ConocoPhillips, Norway) represents major icons of this digital era. However, as per the existing circumstances on NCS, this long-range development scenario presents itself with a multitude of challenges, particularly those relating to human and organizational interfaces, which have to be overcome to ensure long-term sustained benefits.

Factors Affecting Inter-Organisational Information Management Systems in Australian Food Processor Chains

It is agreed that good communication systems between organisations increase customer satisfaction and relationship behaviour and are important issues in chain collaboration and competition. However, less is known about the details of how information is used to manage relationships and coordinate customers and suppliers in chains. In earlier stages of the research, a dynamic model of interorganisational information management systems (IOIMS) and relationships was developed. This chapter presents an evaluation of this model based on a survey of Australian food processors and a green life industry case study and an evaluation of a revised version of this model. It was found that a strategic-oriented IOIMS were positively associated with IOIMS satisfaction that was, in turn, positively associated with perceived current outcomes (satisfaction with performance, perceived responsiveness, and strength of relationship trust). However, (attitudinal) commitment to develop long-term customer/supplier relationships was not significantly associated with the IOIMS, IOIMS satisfaction, or current outcomes. Results were moderated by the nature of the business environment—power/dependency, experience, and market uncertainty. These findings are discussed along with implications for management and suggestions for future research.

A Process Model of Inter-Organisational SCM Initiatives Adoption

While the benefits of adopting interorganisational supply chain management (IOSCM) initiatives, such as efficient consumer response (ECR) and collaborative, planning, forecasting, and replenishment (CPFR), have been widely reported within industry, their adoption has been slow and below industry expectations. There is a lack of theory within the literature to explain this problem in IOSCM initiatives adoption. Employing an inductive case-study approach to theory building, broadly in the tradition of grounded theory, this chapter develops a process model that captures the complexity of intra-industry interactions in the course of IOSCM adoption and argues for a normative path that necessarily has to be taken to achieve the increasing levels of integration envisioned in IOSCM initiatives. The model proposes that three sets of requirements have to be

Trust and Transparency in Supply Netchains

This chapter analyses the effects of increased transparency in supply netchains. The term netchain refers to both chain and network aspects. Three levels of transparency are distinguished: history transparency (e.g., tracking and tracing), operations transparency (e.g., collaborative logistics planning), and strategy transparency (e.g., joint innovation). Using an example in the Dutch egg sector, the chapter shows how the role of the individual company changes in a netchain and discusses the implications. Though technology push makes transparency feasible and economically attractive, social-psychological barriers exist that should be taken seriously. A brief review of cases from several continents shows that these barriers vary across cultures, depending on prevailing attitudes towards relationships and authority. Transparency may run counter to tradition, to trust, and to entrepreneurial freedom in the netchain, but it also offers opportunities for creating netchains that are profitable to all participants. To grasp these requires vision on behalf of those involved.

An Application of Soft Systems Methodology to Supply Chain Management

This chapter reflects upon techniques that might facilitate improved strategic decision making in a supply chain management (SCM) environment. In particular, it presents the integration of a selection of techniques adapted from an approach to systems-based problem solving that has emerged primarily in the UK over the last 20-30 years—the soft systems methodology (SSM). The results reported indicate that SSM techniques can complement existing SCM decision-making tools. In particular, this chapter outlines a framework for integrating some SSM techniques with approaches based upon the supply-chain operations reference-model (SCOR) .

Strategic Alliances of Information Technology Among Channel Members

This chapter explores novel ways of improving flexibility, responsiveness, and competitiveness via strategic information technology (IT) alliances among channel members in a supply chain network. To gain competitiveness, firms have to constantly update their operational strategies and information technologies through collaborative efforts of a “network” of supply chain members rather than the efforts of an individual firm. In sum, the foci of this chapter are: (1) an overview of supply chain management (SCM) issues and problems, (2) supply chain coordination and integration, (3) the latest IT applications for improved supply chain performance and coordination, and (4) strategic IT alliances. This chapter concludes with a discussion of business implications and recommendations of future research.

Virtual Integration

The integration and coordination of strategic suppliers becomes increasingly important as the manufacturer relies on external transactions to build up collaborative advantages. By conceptualizing virtual integration as an efficient and effective vertical coordination mechanism, the study discussed in this chapter developed a model to examine the role virtual integration plays in improving manufacturing performance and the antecedent factors that can lead supply chain members to rely on virtual integration to govern supply chain integration. Based on the resource-based view and transaction costs theory, the suppliers’ specific investments and environmental uncertainty are identified as critical antecedents to virtual integration. The results show that the suppliers’ specific investments can significantly improve the manufacturers’ achievement of manufacturing goals, thereby motivating the manufacturer to rely on virtual integration to better coordinate with the suppliers who made significant idiosyncratic investments for enhancing transaction value while controlling the potential hazards.

Supply Chain Risk Management

This chapter introduces a game-theoretic approach to supply chain risk management. The focus of this study lies on the risk of a single supply chain member defecting from common supply chain agreements, thereby jeopardizing the overall supply chain performance. The chapter goes on to introduce a manual supply chain game, by which dynamic supply chain mechanisms can be simulated and further analyzed using a game-theoretic model. With the help of the game-theoretic model, externalities are identified that negatively impact supply chain efficiency. The conclusion drawn from this chapter is that incentives are necessary to overcome these externalities in order to align supply chain objectives. The authors show that the game-theoretic model, in connection with the supply chain game presented, provides an informative basis for the future development of incentives by which supply chains can be aligned in order to reduce supply chain risks.

Implementing Supply Chain Management in the New Era

Combining with the collaborations between business customers and suppliers, traditional purchasing and logistics functions have evolved into a broader concept of materials and distribution management, namely, supply chain management (SCM) (Tan, 2001). This chapter reviews the literature of SCM from several paths that can be the basis of a proposed framework for SCM within academic and managerial contexts. In addition, it includes the approaches of supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model, which was developed by the Supply Chain Council and is recognised as a diagnostic tool for SCM worldwide. This chapter also summarises the literature of performance control and risk issues in SCM and the SCOR Model and discusses a proposed framework for the future research.