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Production in global, intra-organisational networks is becoming more common. In this context, the allocation of production quantities to constrained manufacturing capacity is a challenging process. Due to a volatile environment it is argued to be impossible to achieve a ‘clean’ system design with dedicated resources which exactly meets future demand. Thus, recursive ‘Network Master Planning’ (NMP) becomes necessary. The aim of this research is to generate an understanding of the unusual situation of Network Master Planning and enable improvement of NMP practice. The author introduces a specification of requirements that was derived from observation of the real-life NMP planning activity. The relevant literature is presented to focus and position NMP in the field of tactical production planning in the literature and business context. Solution principles, design rules, and an architecture are proposed and combined to a planning methodology. The research is problem-solving in nature and based in management research. The author seeks to develop new understanding by testing hypotheses in practice. Thus, knowledge originates in real world situations. The thesis describes how NMP concepts have been derived in a single-case-study and validated by implementing and testing tool modules incorporating these concepts. The understanding of fundamentals and requirements for NMP, proposed concepts to tackle NMP, and generic findings represent the major contribution to knowledge of this thesis. The core findings of this work are that: • NMP is a series of steps not an isolated task. • Aggregation does not solve the problems of NMP. • Dynamic, multi-objective planning needs human decision makers. • Tool support in NMP means complementing human actions; not replacing them by ‘automatic optimisation’. • It is possible to implement the proposed NMP concepts in a practical procedure. Additionally to building the basis for further work, the findings of this research work are transformed into recommendations particularly for practitioners who are in a similar situation to the case company. The individual points may serve as guidelines to support practitioners working in the field of NMP or restructuring an existing planning system.

This thesis presents three studies in Supply Chain Partnership. The first study is to develop a supply chain partnership classification scheme for academic and managerial purposes. The main characteristics of the classification scheme we obtained are that this scheme is 1) specialised for supply chain partnerships, 2) empirically derived, and 3) based on the five determinants of supply chain performance. In addition, the newly developed scheme has provided an important insight into the pattern of the evolution of supply chain partnerships. On the basis of these findings, some requirements for the evolution of supply chain partnerships, which are in the form of components of the partnership development management, were suggested. In the second study, we have identified the major factors of a successful supply chain partnership and estimated models for the three dimensions of supply chain partnership performance. The three performance models provide an important foundation for developing a 'supply chain partnership performance management scheme'. In the final study we have confirmed that suppliers and customers do see things significantly differently, and there is the negative association between these differences and the performance of a supply chain partnership. The third study is exploratory in nature; thus, it has provided some interesting research opportunities for academics.